Proceedings of the Hon'ble the Chief Commissioner and Agent to the Governor-General, North-West Frontier
Province, No. 476 Ag., dated Peshawar, the 29th August 1910.
READ—
The report on the working of the Provincial Civil Veterinary Department for the year ending 31st March 1910.
REMARKS.—Mr. Woodley was in charge of the Department for four
months, while Mr. Carless held charge for 8 months. Mr. Woodley made a tour
of inspection and was present at the Horse and Cattle Fairs in Dera Ismail Khan
and Bannu. Mr. Carless visited Hazara and Peshawar, and attended the Pesha-
war and Haripur Horse and Cattle Shows.
Veterinary instruction.
2. During the year under report two stipendiaries of this Province com-
pleted their course of study and were
appointed Veterinary Assistants. Five fresh
students (one from each district) were deputed during the year by the Local
Boards for training at the Punjab Veterinary College. The difficulty hitherto
experienced in recruiting Veterinary Assistants for the Province should shortly
vanish.
During the last two years only two Assistants have been deputed to the
Imperial Bacteriological Laboratory at Muktesar for training in inoculation. Of
23 Veterinary Assistants seven were still unqualified at the close of the year.
The improtance of this training must not be overlooked and the Superintendent
will be asked to depute a larger number each year in future.
3. The statements appended to the report show a marked increase this
year both in the number of animals attacked by contagious diseases and in the
number of deaths. Deaths amongst equines increased from 17 to 49, amongst
bovines from 1,178 to 3,061 and amongst other animals from 142 to 2,674. In
equines 46 deaths were due to surra, which prevailed in a virulent form in Tochi
and to a lesser extent in Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan. Two deaths occurred
from glanders in Peshawar but there were nowhere any cases of anthrax or
dourine.
As regards bovines deaths from rinderpest rose from 403 to 1,448 and
fatal cases of hæmorrhagic septicaemia from 422 to 1,225. Deaths from
anthrax increased from 19 to 138, but fatal cases of black-quarter receded from
226 to 105. Preventive inoculation for rinderpest amongst bovines was under-
taken in no less than 40 outbreaks, mostly in Peshawar and Hazara, and 15,026
animals were inoculated. Altogether 992 (Peshawar 282, Hazara 604, and Kurram
106) animals died in the course of these outbreaks without being inoculated.
Black-quarter broke out in 25 villages (15 in Peshawar and 10 in Kurram) and
4,442 animals were inoculated.
This year again no inoculations against hæmorrhagic septicæmia were
performed, but the Superintendent anticipates that experiments will now be
possible with the vaccine and serum which have recently been favourably reported
upon from Muktesar.
The Veterinary Assistants treated 16,232 animals for contagious and 4,721
for non-contagious diseases, a marked advance over previous years. The Super-
intendent is undoubtedly correct when he remarks that the large increase in the
number of animals attacked by contagious diseases is due to the improved system
of reporting diseases, and the increased staff has enabled the Department to
attend to a larger number of outbreaks than in former years: in fact for these
reasons comparisons with previous statistics are misleading, but at the same time
they reveal the magnitude of the task lying before the Department and the
appointment of a separate Superintendent for the North-West Frontier Province
cannot much longer be postponed.
Veterinary institutions.
4. The revised system whereby stationary assistants have been put in
charge of the veterinary institutions at
each tehsil head-quarters and a separate
itinerating Veterinary Assistant has been appointed for each district was in full
force during the year. Paragraph 30 of the Report shows that in some instances
the temporary closure of hospitals was necessitated, but in spite of this the
growing popularity of the Veterinary Hospitals is evidenced in remarkable