(3)
Rules are necessary for regulating the separation and isolation of animals
in an infected place or area and prohibiting or regulating the removal of
carcases, fodder, litter, utensils, pens, hurdles, dung or other offal from an
infected place or area, also for prohibiting the digging up of carcases which
have been buried. Thousands of cattle die every year from contagious diseases
apart from hundreds of thousands slaughtered for eating purposes. Surely it
is time that all possible precautions be taken to save as many cattle as possible.
The price of good cattle has gone up very high in the last few years, and a
good pair of bullocks for ploughing purposes, which could be had for Rs. 300 a
few years ago, cannot be purchased now for less than Rs. 600.
Pathological specimens.
6. Information about the number of specimens examined or received
in the office during the year cannot be
given, as the registers concerned have
been burnt in the recent fire at Rawalpindi.
SECTION 1-A.—EQUINE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES.
Mortality.—Table II.
7. There were 23 cases and 19
deaths compared with 63 cases and 27
deaths last year.
Glandors.—Table II.
8. There were 7 cases compared with 8 cases last year. Rs. 270
were paid as compensation during the
year under report against Rs. 450 last
year.
At the time of different Shows and Fairs held in the Province during
the year under report a thorough inspection of equines was carried out with a
view to detecting Glanders. Horses plying for hire in Peshawar City and
Cantonment were examined with a view to detecting cases of Glanders. We
have not got rid of Glanders yet by any means in the Frontier Province, and
all that can be done with the present staff is being done. More men are
badly wanted to carry out a thorough inspection in the Province in order to
detect cases of Glanders which still remain hidden. Experience shows that
animals suffering from this disease are kept hidden during the day time and
their owners get work from them during the night, when generally there is no
body to catch them. At some places licenses are given to tonga and
tumtum drivers without their horses being first examined by a Veterinary
Inspector or Assistant. This is objectionable, as cases suffering from Glanders
or other contagious disease are passed unchecked, and so spread disease. This
should be stopped and all horses should be examined by the Veterinary
Inspector, who is also an Inspector under Glanders and Farcy Act, before any
license is issued to a tonga or tumtum driver. This will help the Depart-
ment in stopping the diseased animals working with the healthy ones and
thereby check the spreading of disease in the Province.
It is in fact more than likely that the majority of horses possess a certain
degree of immunity from this disease, otherwise considering the way adopted in
this country to detect and destroy all cases of Glanders and the hundreds of
years the disease must have existed in this country, it is difficult to understand
why there are any horses left. This disease does not spread so rapidly over a
country as do Rinderpest and Foot-and-Mouth disease. Infection is a slow
processs and even, where neglected, it does not run through a stable like
Influenza, or suddenly infect large bodies of animals as cattle-plague does.
The only real feeling that exists is in the veterinary profession which
year by year sees a number of horses destroyed from a disease which is capable
of being stamped out and further knows of its existence in other living centres
of infection, but is powerless to act through the unsatisfactory state of the law.
It is due to comparatively quiet behaviour of Glanders that no popular feeling
exists for its suppression though one would have thought that the fact of its
being communicable to man would have aroused some instinct of humanity.
In the case of Rabies it only became a strong argument when the deaths
amongst humans numbered some scores annually, and a genuine feeling of