Thursday, December 11, 1902. 247 and of these the following eleven satisfied the Examiners, and have therefore been awarded the National Diploma in the Science and Practice of Dairying : WILLIAM EDMUND GODFREY ATKINSON, S.E. Agricultural College, Wye, and British Dairy Institute, Reading. JOHN BATESON, Harris Institute, Preston, and Lancashire C.C. Farm, Hutton. ALFRED ALLMAN HOPWOOD, The Dairy Institute, Worleston, Cheshire. HENRY BROUGHAM HUTCHINSON, Harris Institute, Preston, and Lancashire JAMES DYSON LACY, Midland Agricultural and Dairy Institute, Kingston, Derby. THOMAS MILBURN, Harris Institute, Preston, and Lancashire C.C. Farm, Hutton. GEORGE POTTS, Durham College of Science, Halle University, and British Dairy Institute, Reading. MISS JENNY H. REID, Glasgow and West of Scotland Agricultural College, Scottish Dairy Institute, Kilmarnock, and British Dairy Institute, Reading. JOHN EDWIN RIGG, Harris Institute, Preston, and Lancashire C.C. Farm, Hutton. Sixteen candidates were examined at Kilmarnock, and eleven of them satisfied the Examiners, and have been awarded the Diploma, viz.:— MISS NELLY M. BENNET, Causewayhead, Stirling. JOHN WHITEFORD DUNLOP, Gree Farm, Fenwick. MISS SUSAN GARDNER FINGLAND, Braehead, Cathcart. PATRICK FOWLIE, Bogfold, New Pitsligo. GEOFFREY STEELE HENDERSON, Dundonald Street, Kilmarnock. MISS NORAH MUSGRAVE, Sherwood, Northwood, R.S.O., Middlesex. MISS ANNIE CRAIG SPEIR, Newton Farm, Newton. 30. The National Agricultural Examination Board will hold a further Examination at the Yorkshire College, Leeds, on Monday, May 11, 1903, and following days, for the National Diploma in Agriculture. The entries for this Examination will close on Tuesday, March 31, 1903. Examinations for the National Diploma in Dairying will also be held in the autumn at Reading and Kilmarnock, the last date for the receipt of applications to sit for such examination being Monday, August 31, 1903. By Order of the Council, ERNEST CLARKE, 13 Hanover Square, London, W. Secretary. 248 ANNUAL REPORT FOR 1901 OF THE PRINCIPAL OF THE ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE. RESEARCH LABORATORY. DURING the year 1901, 488 morbid specimens were forwarded for examination to the Laboratory established at the Royal Veterinary College in 1890 for research in Comparative Pathology and Bacteriology, and which has since been maintained by the aid of an annual grant of 5007. from the Royal Agricultural Society. The number of specimens similarly forwarded in 1900 was 343, and in the preceding year 380. As in previous years, a great variety of diseased conditions were represented in these specimens, and the examination of them. involved a large amount of time and much microscopic and experimental work. The material thus sent continues to prove of great value in two different directions. In the first place, the Laboratory is now recognized throughout the kingdom as a place to which recourse may be had by veterinary surgeons and members of the Society in the elucidation of what appear to be obscure or uncommon cases of disease affecting any of the lower animals; and, secondly, the material which is thus sent to the Laboratory is daily utilised with great advantage in the practical teaching of Pathology to the rising generation of veterinary surgeons. RABIES. It is unfortunate, though not surprising, that the country cannot yet be considered free from this dreaded disease. Only six cases in the dog and five in other animals were detected in 1900, and as the latest of these occurred in the second week of October it was stated in the last Annual Report that the year would probably remain memorable as the one in which rabies was eradicated from Great Britain. This estimate of the probabilities was falsified in April last, when one case in a dog was detected in Carmarthenshire. From that date until the close of the year the returns of the Board of Agriculture under the head Rabies and Anthrax. 249 of rabies remained blank, but in the week ended February 1 of the current year (1902) a suspected case of the disease in a dog in Wales, near Milford Haven, was experimentally verified in the Research Laboratory as rabies, and a further outbreak affecting dogs occurred in the same county in the following week. The possibility of other cases occurring in the same district has, therefore, to be reckoned with, though the event affords no ground for serious anxiety or fear that the disease may again assume its old prevalence. It has been necessary to reimpose the Muzzling Order in the districts involved, in the counties of Carmarthen and Pembroke, and with that precaution it may reasonably be hoped that Wales, as well as England and Scotland, will soon obtain a clean bill of health. The imposing of Muzzling Orders by the Board of Agriculture in all districts in which cases of rabies had recently been detected was begun in March, 1897, and the following figures are interesting as showing the remarkable success of the Board's efforts to eradicate the disease : It is a somewhat curious circumstance that the number of animals attacked by this disease, as reported to the Board of Agriculture, in 1901, was precisely the same as in the preceding year-viz. 956. The outbreaks were rather more numerous during the past year-viz. 647, as against 571 in 1900. However, the recent returns still preserve a feature which has been notable in all previous years-that is to say, the average number of animals attacked in each outbreak is small (less than two). During the past year an increasing number of specimens have been referred to the Research Laboratory for microscopic examination in suspected cases of anthrax, and the proportion of instances in which it was thus proved that the cause of death was of some other nature leaves little room for doubt that the returns published by the Board of Agriculture on this head are not altogether reliable, when it is remembered that it is still a comparatively common practice to diagnose anthrax from a history of sudden death and the appearance of the unopened carcass. There is no justification for such a loose procedure, and it is time that it came to an end. It doubtless entails errors in two different directions-viz., by creating false alarms in cases that are not anthrax, and by failing to recognise genuine cases of the disease. The law rightly directs that animals dead of anthrax shall not be eviscerated; but, although an ordinary post-mortem examination is thus forbidden, that is no reason why the only method by which a correct diagnosis can be made in suspected cases should be neglected. At least in the case of the larger farm animals, microscopic examination of fresh blood by a competent person is always reliable as a guide to diagnosis; and, as was first pointed out in a previous report to the Society,' it is preferable to take the blood for examination from a vein of an ear or a foot rather than from the interior of the body, apart altogether from the inevitable ground contamination and risk to the operator involved in opening up the abdomen or thorax. A fact which every year occasionally comes under notice affords evidence that there is still a good deal of ignorance on the part of stockowners regarding the circumstances that ought to raise suspicions of anthrax. Every now and again it happens that the disease is first detected in pigs, the affected animal dying after having been ill for a day or two, with swelling in the region of the throat as the most prominent symptom. In such a case it is generally safe to assume that a recent case of anthrax on the premises has been overlooked or concealed, and inquiry almost invariably elicits the fact that the pigs had been fed with the raw flesh of some animal (ox or sheep) unexpectedly found dead. Although it is unjustifiable to return every case of sudden unexpected death as anthrax, it is undoubtedly wise to provisionally diagnose every such case as of that nature, and to report the suspicion to the authorities. Until it has been ascertained that the case was not one of anthrax the flesh should not be used for feeding pigs, nor should the carcass be skinned or dressed. Indeed, the practice of allowing pigs to devour the raw flesh of animals that have died from any cause is one that deserves to be condemned. In the last Annual Report reference was made to a case in which it was proved that a number of cattle had been infected with anthrax through the medium of oil cake containing the spores, and to the occurrence of outbreaks of anthrax on stallfed animals not receiving either roots or green food. During the past year three cases of the disease in such circumstances in London stables came under notice, but the particular article of diet responsible for the infection was not determined. GLANDERS. In the last Annual Report reference was made to the inadequacy of the existing regulations to enable local authorities to deal with glanders, and the necessity for some amendment Journal R.A.S.E., Vol. 55, 1894, page 266. of the law in this respect has been made more apparent by the experience of the past year, during which the disease has been more prevalent than at any time since 1893. The total number of outbreaks recorded during that year was 1,381, but during the next six years they never reached four figures. In 1900 they rose to 1,119, and for last year the total outbreaks numbered 1,350. The increased prevalence of the disease during the past two years may have been partly the result of greater activity in the movement of horses consequent upon the war in South Africa, but it would not be reasonable to attribute much influence to that factor. In searching for other explanations of the recrudescence, a possibility that suggests itself is that the apparent increase is in reality a wholesome sign that owners and local authorities have recently been more diligent in their efforts to eradicate the disease. It is now generally admitted that the discovery of mallein has armed horse-owners with a very useful weapon in the struggle with glanders, since that agent has proved itself to be marvellously reliable for the diagnosis of the disease. With this fact many owners are now well acquainted, and it is natural to suppose at first that the larger number of horses recently returned as glandered simply represents a more frequent resort to the assistance of mallein in an endeavour to stamp out the disease. Unfortunately, there is a circumstance which renders this view untenable. There is a close similarity between glanders and tuberculosis in that both are very insidious diseases, and that, consequently, in all infected stocks of any magnitude there is a great disproportion between the number of animals actually infected and the number visibly ill. Hence, also, in both cases no attempt to eradicate the disease has any hope of success unless the apparently healthy, but in reality diseased, are dealt with either by isolation or slaughter. It is evident from these considerations that if any large proportion of the cases recently returned were the result of systematic attempts to weed out all affected horses, the number of animals returned as diseased in each outbreak would be considerable. But the returns show that such is not the case. As previously stated, the total number of outbreaks during 1901 was 1,350, but the total number of horses returned as affected in these outbreaks was only 2,332, or less than an average of two animals in each outbreak. In very few, therefore, of the outbreaks can an effort have been made to stamp out the disease by testing all the horses in the stud with mallein, and either slaughtering or isolating those that reacted. Had that policy been generally adopted, the number of horses returned as diseased would probably have exceeded 20,000. |