GREATER LABORATORY FACILITIES NEEDED. Finally, I invite attention to the great desirability of a fireproof building for the scientific laboratory. The building now occupied is unsuited for housing the valuable working material which has been accumulated during the thirteen years that the Bureau has been in existence. In the study of animal parasites, for instance, there have been intrusted to Dr. Stiles, our zoologist, the type specimens from the principal collections of the world. If these specimens were destroyed it would be an irreparable loss to science and to practical agriculture. So in each division of the work there are specimens, literature, indexes, and working material of all kinds which represent years of labor, and which could not possibly be replaced. This laboratory is a practical workshop, which aims to make constant and immediate returns to the farmers for the full amount expended for the scientific work of the Bureau. It is accomplishing this by the distribution of tuberculin, mallein, and blackleg vaccine, by bringing out the best methods of treating diseases, by determining the nature of diseases which affect stock and informing the owners, and by perfecting methods for making cattle insusceptible to Texas fever and for killing the ticks which are the means of spreading the disease. This work is worth millions of dollars to our farmers, and should not only be encouraged but put beyond the danger of interruption and ruin by fires and other avoidable accidents. The laboratory building now occupied is insufficient in capacity for the demands now made upon it. There are lines of work of great importance which can not be taken up. The biochemical side of butter and cheese making, including the microorganisms which play a part in these processes and the chemical changes which are due to them, should be thoroughly studied. More work should be done with a view to the perfection of methods for the control of hog cholera and tuberculosis. The expense of such work is insignificant when we consider the vast amount of property now lost annually by our farmers through the ravages of preventable diseases. Hon. JAMES WILSON, D. E. SALMON, Chief. Secretary. OUTLINES OF WORK PURSUED BY THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY.' By D. E. SALMON, D. V. M., The Department of Agriculture was impressed early in its history with many and difficult problems connected with the animal industry of the country that needed solution, but in regard to which the most enlightened agriculturists and the most expert scientific men were profoundly ignorant. Most important among these problems were the diseases which often caused disastrous losses. The second Commissioner of Agriculture had occasion to call attention, in his second and third annual reports, to "the prevalence of fatal maladies among all varieties of farm animals, resulting in the annual loss of not less than $50,000,000," and recommended the establishment in the Department of a division of veterinary surgery. The next year, 1870, Commissioner Capron renewed the subject, referring particularly to a forthcoming report upon pleuro-pneumonia and Texas fever, diseases then prevalent and recently investigated under the supervision of the Department. He says in the annual report: The value of stock lost annually from disease is enormous, and threatens not only to decimate our animals, but to expose the human family to disease from the consumption of unwholesome meats. Neglect of animals and their overcrowding in transportation are prolific sources of disease, and its spread is permitted by the ignorance of a majority of the present class of veterinarians. Another class of disease arises from causes obscurely known, if known at all, and these fatal maladies are as yet without any indicated effort of cure, rendering necessary the barbarous plan of stamping out as the only means of saving the agri * culturist or stock raiser from total ruin. * While recognizing the danger and losses from animal diseases, these observations emphasize the prevailing ignorance of the times. Veterinarians at that period were few and widely scattered, and how could they be expected to guard against the spread of contagion when they were seldom consulted, and under any circumstances were without authority to prevent the driving, the transportation, or the sale of affected animals, and the consequent unlimited exposure of other animals to the cause of these diseases! The method of eradicating disease by the slaughter of affected and exposed animals, rather contemptuously referred to as "the barbarous plan of stamping out," must in many cases remain for all time the proper course of procedure. It is sentiment and not science that raises objections to it in those special cases where its application is Reprinted from Yearbook for 1897. 1 clearly indicated. With pleuro-pneumonia, for instance, it is absurd to allow animals affected with this important plague to remain alive as breeding places of the contagion a single hour after they can be properly killed. Until we can perform miracles and cure an animal in an instant, freeing it by the same instantaneous process of the power to transmit the contagion with which it is saturated, it will be folly to preserve and treat animals affected with plagues that are not already generally disseminated. The failure to recognize this axiomatic principle delayed for a long time the beginning of the work for stamping out pleuro-pneumonia, and threatened at times to arrest it before a fair trial of this method had been made. Notwithstanding the attention given annually in the reports of the Department to special manifestations of animal disease, no specific appropriation of money was made for investigation until 1877, when Congress granted $10,000 for such purpose, impelled by the prevalence of diseases among swine and cattle. Whatever the results achieved through the subsequent reports, published by the Department in 1878, in the way of educating stock raisers to avoid such diseases, the writer will only mention his own effort at that time to lay down some general principles for the investigation and successful management of contagious animal diseases in general. This method was developed more fully in the annual report for 1881-82, of which Commissioner Le Duc stated introductorily: The ultimate objects of Dr. Salmon's investigations have been, first, to discover the exact form and nature of the germ causing the diseases under consideration; second, to learn how it is distributed, and how this distribution can be prevented; third, the best methods of destroying the virus within as well as outside of the animal body; fourth, methods of rendering animals insusceptible to the effects of these germs; and, fifth, if it be possible, to establish breeds of animals that are insusceptible to such diseases. To properly apply these principles, based upon the recent bacteriological discoveries, in order that the work might be of permanent value, a veterinary division was established in the Department in 1883, which was replaced by the Bureau of Animal Industry, the organization of which was directed by Congress in 1884. The effect of the labors carried on under the direction of this Bureau upon the health and value of farm animals and their products is a matter of world-wide knowledge; and it is at least possible now to modify the official statement made by the head of the Department in 1868, that our domestic animals "have all suffered from the local prevalence of malignant forms of disease, against which little veterinary skill is opposed, and little more than empiricism and superstitious folly is practiced." NUMBER AND VALUE OF FARM ANIMALS IN 1884. It is of interest, in connection with the above, to know both the number and value of the principal classes of our domesticated animals at the time this large but sensitive source of wealth and convenience became officially represented in the Department of Agriculture. The following table, showing the number and value of these animals on January 1, 1884, is, therefore, prepared from Miscellaneous Bulletin No. 11 of the Division of Statistics: Number and value of principal farm animals on January 1, 1884. Five years later there were, according to the Eleventh Census, a little over 49,000 asses and 285,609,440 domestic fowls, and there were also 500,000 goats, all of undetermined value. The number of these was not much less in 1884, and at a low valuation they were jointly worth $57,000,000, making the aggregate value of our domestic animals at that time not less than $2,525,500,000. A striking fact is that should this Bureau be able to save to the owners of live stock by the information which it distributes and by its executive work but 1 per cent per annum of that value, this saving would amount to $25,255,000 of their capital, at the comparatively insignificant cost of the annual appropriations which sustain the Bureau, whatever their amount may be. The real losses upon hogs, cattle, and sheep not killed by dogs, which died during the last census year, reckoned at $10, $15, and $2 per head, respectively, were $133,601,743, and over $98,000,000 of this was in hogs. In addition to the possible and probable saving of 1 per cent per annum in live stock alone, there should not be forgotten the benefits to human health and the maintenance and increase of commerce in animals and their products, at home and abroad, through inspection, certification, and diminished insurance. THE REASONS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BUREAU. The immediate cause of the establishment of the Bureau of Animal Industry was the urgent need by the Federal Government of official information concerning the nature and prevalence of animal diseases and of the means required to control and eradicate them, and also the necessity of having an executive agency to put into effect the measures necessary to stop the spread of disease and to prevent the importation of contagion into the country, as well as to conduct the original investigations through which further knowledge might be obtained. Our exported cattle and sheep had recently been refused admission into Great Britain and condemned to slaughter upon the docks where landed because of alleged contagious diseases in this country dangerous to foreign live stock. Our pork has been prohibited entrance into most of the countries of continental Europe because it was alleged to be infested with trichinæ, and therefore dangerous to the health and lives of the consumers. Twenty-five to thirty million dollars' worth of hogs were dying each year from contagious disease. Cattle raisers were in a condition bordering upon a panic from fear of Texas fever and contagious pleuro-pneumonia, and State restrictions were seriously interfering with interstate traffic in bovine animals. Sheep raising had become precarious in many sections because of scab and other parasitic diseases. The repeated demands and agitation for governmental assistance culminated in 1884 in the enactment of the organic act of this Bureau. THE PLEURO-PNEUMONIA PROBLEM. The most pressing duty devolving upon the new Bureau was to arrest the extension of pleuro-pneumonia and, if possible, eradicate that disease from the country. In attempting to perform this duty, it developed that notwithstanding the investigations and reports of scientific men, the Commissioner of Agriculture, under whom that work was to be entered upon, doubted the existence of the disease in the United States. The prevalence of some peculiar disease of cattle in certain portions of the country was evident, and elaborate experiments were made to demonstrate whether or not it was of a contagious nature. After this demonstration had been made it was necessary to secure further authority from Congress before effective work could be undertaken. By the original legislation, only diseased animals could be purchased for slaughter; but the contagion could not be eradicated or appreciably diminished while exposed animals were left in the stables to develop the disease and infect other animals. It was not until 1887 that authority to use the appropriation for the purchase and slaughter of exposed animals was received. From that time forward there were no extensions of the discase into fresh territory, and the infected districts were rapidly freed from it. The work was at first concentrated upon Illinois, Kentucky, and Maryland, and the contagion eradicated from the first two and controlled in the last. Then the remainder of the infected district, which was included in the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, was embraced in the field of operations. In five years from the time the work of eradication by slaughter of both diseased and exposed animals was commenced the disease was officially declared to be eradicated. Since early in 1892 no case of contagious pleuro-pneumonia of cattle has been discovered in the United States, and events have consequently confirmed the thoroughness and reliability of the work. It is almost impossible at this time to give an idea of the danger |