NationalLibraryOfScotland/medical-history-of-british-india huggingface dataset:
From U CHIT MAUNG (2), B.A., A.T.M., Secretary to the Financial Commissioner,
(Transferred Subjects), Burma, to the Secretary to the Government of Burma,
Forest Department,—No. 862—IV.-87, dated the 20th September 1929.
SUBJECT.—Annual Report of the Veterinary Department for the year
ending 31st March 1929.
I am directed to submit the annual report of the Veterinary Depart-
ment for the year ending 31st March 1929.
2. The actual progress towards control of rinderpest and the other
dangerous, but less destructive epizootic diseases, it must be admitted,
is slow. There was a considerable decrease in deaths from rinderpest—
22,061 were reported during the year against 38,385 in 1927-28 and
30,610 in 1926-27. It is not possible to prove whether this decrease is
due to the efforts of the Department or whether it is entirely the result
of other causes. The same methods were used by the Department, which
have been in use for many years past ; and these methods have failed
in the past to prevent the disastrous outbreaks of rinderpest which
have recurred from time to time. All we can say is that if it had not
been for the exertions made by village headmen, district officials and
the staff of the Veterinary Department, it is possible that the loss
caused by rinderpest might have been even greater. It is hoped however
that important improvements of methods are now in sight. The means
which Government departments can employ for the purpose of
controlling these diseases are firstly the immunization of the domestic
animals in the country by inoculation or by selective breeding and
secondly, the stamping out of the disease by the slaughter of infected
animals together with quarantine and standstill orders. A necessary
step towards complete control is an effective system of reporting the
occurrence of the disease. As Mr. McKerral mentions in paragraph 13
of this report the second method—stamping out by enforcing standstill
orders and slaughtering infected animals without the aid of any
preventive inoculation is said to have been completely successful in the
United Kingdom about the year 1865 in freeing that country from
rinderpest. The immunization of stock by anti-rinderpest inoculation
is believed to have been a triumphant success in South Africa. As
the report shows, what is now aimed at by the Department is improve-
ment of its measures against the dangerous epizootic diseases and
especially rinderpest, by both the two methods of immunization by
inoculation and segregation. Selective breeding, however, is not being
attempted in Burma, and slaughter of animals to prevent disease probably
would not be tolerated by the people.
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3. As regards segregation statutory rules made under the Burma
Village Act (the Cattle Diseases Rules, 1914), provide for standstill
orders. There are similar orders (the Diseases of Animals Towns Rules
1923) in force in Municipal towns. In this respect Burma is, the
Financial Commissioner believes, in advance of any of the Indian
Provinces except Madras. The Cattle Diseases Rules, 1914, were further
extended during the year under report, and are now in force wherever
the Burma Village Act, 1907, applies excepting part of the Salween
District. The report mentions that the rules were vigorously enforced
in the Katha and Bassein Districts during the year. That was due to
energetic Deputy Commisioners. The rules however require revision
with regard to providing more effective control over the movements of
drovers' herds, and other cattle entering districts in which contagious
disease has not yet broken out, and in which therefore stanstill orders
under Rule 13 cannot be applied. Improvement of the rules is needed
also, as is mentioned in paragraph 11 of this report, for enforcing
quarantine against cattle entering Burma from neighbouring countries.
The adminstration of the rules is in the hands of the Deputy Commis-
sioners and their subordinates and the division of responsibility between
the Veterinary Department, the Deputy Commissioners and the
District Councils which was commented upon in the Financial
Commissioner's review of the report for 1926-27 has not yet been
altered. The draft Animal Diseases Act, intended to replace these
rules as well as the Glanders and Farcy Act, 1899, mentioned in para-
graph 11 of the report, and Mr. McKerral's own suggestions are still
(as there stated) under consideration. The Financial Commissioner
regrets that he has not yet been able to make the necessary exami-
nation of these legislative provisions and to submit his proposals to
Government. The Government of India now contemplates all India
legislation on this subject in accordance with the recommendations
of the Royal Commission on Agriculture. Special provisions not
suitable for all India provinces will probably be necessary for Burma
and if an all-India Act would prevent such special provisions, it
would be better for Burma to be left out of the all-India legislation.
4. As regards the other method of control there has been some
progress in plans for making use of the serum cum virus method (some-
times called the " scrum simultaneous" method) of inoculation against
rinderpest, which was mentioned in the previous year's report. The
advice and the assistance given in this matter by Mr. D. T. Mitchell,
M.R.C.V.S., an officer borrowed from the Government of the Union of
South Africa, was mentioned in the report for that year By the
opportune outbreak of rinderpest in the Pinjrapole Depôt near
Rangoon, and with the enlightened co-operation of the Pinjrapole
Society, the Department was able to carry out an experiment described
in the report, which may prove to be of great value in assisting the
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introduction of the " serum simultaneous " method. The Financial
Commissioner thinks that the Pinjrapole Society deserves the thanks
of Government and the gratitude of the public for this beneficent service.
The problem of reducing the expense of this method has not been
solved. It should be observed that over 1,000 cattle died of rinder-
pest in the Akyab District after being inoculated against rinderpest by
the serum alone method which has been in use in Burma hitherto. It
is satisfactory however that, notwithstanding the brief duration (6 to 12
days) of the immunity given by the serum alone method, and the deaths
that have occurred after inoculation by that method, inoculation is
nevertheless reported to be not unpopular among cattle owners
generally in Burma.
5. The Financial Commissioner thinks that more attention should
be given to improving the reporting of contagious diseases, as well as
to improving the methods for controlling them. As was pointed out in
the Financial Commissioner's review of the report for 1926-27, where
Mr. Blake's comments were quoted, the inaccuracy of the cattle
mortality returns in Burma is remarkable. The Department during the
year has made some attempt to reduce the delay in the compilation of
the returns of cattle deaths recorded by village headmen. The
compilation is not done by the Veterinary Department, except the com-
pilation of Provincial totals, which is done in the office of the Head of
the Department. The Township and District figure are compiled
by Township Officers
and Deputy
Commissioners, and hitherto
the local veterinary officers have not seen the statistics, until they
are published with the annual report after the end of the year. The
Circle Officers of the Veterinary Department have only one clerk
each and are therefore unable at present to compile the cattle-
death statistics in their own offices. By the arrangement which
has now been made copies of the returns for each month should reach
the Veterinary Circle Officers about three months after the month to
which they relate.
It was suggested in last year's review that
though the statistics of mortality are highly inaccurate the statistics
of death from contagious disease may be somewhat better than
the aggregate figures, and graphs of rinderpest mortality by districts
were prepared in the Financial Commissioner's office. Though no
satisfactory conclusions could be drawn from the graphs, Mr. Dunn is
still of opinion that the departmental officers should study the statistics
and endeavour to secure their improvement as a means indispensable
for any methodical measures to control the epizootic diseases. The
monthly district returns show incredibly large variations in the number
of deaths from snake bite. Careful examination of the statistics, if it
does not yield satisfactory information about the routes by which
infection travels and the local conditions favouring contagious diseases,
may bring to notice failures in the reporting of these diseases and the
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attention given to such failures is likely to lead to improvement in
reporting. The statistics of cattle deaths and the reporting of contagious
diseases would, Mr. Dunn thinks, have a better chance of being
gradually improved if the monthly returns were compiled for districts
in the offices of the Circle Officers of the Veterinary Department.
6. The superior staff of the Department is still below the strength
which has now been fixed in the rules for the Provincial Veterinary
Service, Class I. The Director of Agriculture. Mr. A. McKerral, cannot
remain in charge of the Department after the 17th January 1930 the
period fixed by the Secretary of State, for this arrangement. The
Financial Commissioner hopes that it will be possible to secure the
services of Mr. D. T. Mitchell, M.R.C.V.S., as Director of Veterinary
Services. The superior staff working during the year under the Director
of Agriculture were only two permanent officers of the Indian
Veterinary Service, Captain J. Birkenshaw Idle, M.R.C.V.S. and
Captain S. R. Rippon, M R.C.V.S., and one officiating officer. One
recruit for the new Provincial Veterinary Service, Class I, Mr.
J. Bhattacharjee, M.R.C.V.S., lately a State Scholar joined the Depart-
ment in May 1929 after the end of the year under review. Another
post of Deputy Director in the new service has still to be filled ; but
that vacancy is at present supplied by U Pe Than, a Deputy Superinten-
dent of the old Provincial Veterinary Service, who holds the officiating
appointment above-mentioned in the Indian Veterinary Service. The
two new permanent posts of Research Officers are vacant. An attempt
was made in 1928 to obtain two Research Officers in temporary posts ;
but Government has been advised that it is necessary to offer permanent
posts.
7. Government's decision on the important proposals, which are
mentioned in the report, for gradually substituting a smaller number of
better educated men on higher pay for the class of Veterinary
Assistants and for improving the standard of instruction at the Veterin-
ary School, Insein, awaits the expected return of Mr. Mitchell from
South Africa. The effect of these proposals would be to give the
Veterinary Department the three classes of officers, which are to be
found in many other Government services ; the third and lowest grade
being analogous to Township Officers, Co-operative Myoôks, and
Sub-Assistant Surgeons. In the Agricultural Department a lower class,
the Junior Assistant Agriculturists, comparable to the present Veterin-
ary Assistants, was tried, but was found unsuitable for work which
requires some technical training and has been rejected.
8. In the development of Veterinary dispensaries, to which attention
was drawn in the review of the 1926-27 report, it is disappointing to
find that there is little or no progress to record. The Financial
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Commissioner learns from the Education Ministry's review of the
reports of the District Councils for 1927-28 that the Lower Chindwin
District Council in that year was discussing with Mônywa Municipal
Committee a proposal to establish a veterinary dispensary at Mônywa ;
but he has heard no more of it. The development of dispensaries
under the control of the District Councils and Municipal Committees is
however a corollary of the scheme mentioned in the last paragraph for
gradually substituting a better qualified and better paid class of officers
for the Veterinary Assistants, and will demand further attention in due
course.
9. Pending the consideration of the proposals for substituting a new
class of Veterinary officers for the Veterinary Assistants, the Veterinary
School has ceased to take in new recruits for the class of Veterinary
Assistants. In order to make the best of the existing staff of Veterinary
Assistants, however, refresher courses were held at the school. The
Veterinary Assistants called in to the school at Insein for these courses
were those who had been found most rusty in the subjects they had
learned during their training at the school. In some cases it appears
they are extraordinarily forgetful of what they have learned. The
reports of the inspecting officers show that there are other defects
besides ignorance among the Veterinary Assistants. The standing
orders of the Department require the Veterinary Assistant to treat 60
cases a month. It is said that Veterinary Assistants make illicit gifts of
Government medicines which can be used also for the purposes of
human beings and that they make false returns of cases treated in order
to conceal such use of Government medicines and to satisfy the
standing orders requiring 60 cases to be treated each month. Some
of the deficiencies of the Veterinary Assistants are no doubt due to the
insufficient inspection which they have received, in the past while the
Department was so much undermanned in the highest grade of officers
Besides the refresher courses for the more backward Veterinary Assistant
the orders of Government require that the Veterinary Assistants should
be given post-graduate training in the Veterinary School before they are
permitted to pass the efficiency bar at Rs. 120 in their scale of salary.
The present scale of pay which is Rs. 50—3—80—4—120—10/3—150
was introduced only from the 1st March 1927, and it will be seven years
before any Veterinary Assistants reach the efficiency bar at Rs. 120.
The post graduate courses, therefore, have not yet been held.
10. Though actual progress is necessarily slow, the report shows
that the Veterinary Department, which sometimes in the past has
seemed to lack ambitions or schemes to guide the work of its officers, is
preparing to make a move forward, and there is reason to hope that
the schemes brought forward and the preparations made during
Mr. McKerrals's tenure of the post of Head of the Department, which
will come to an end during the current year, will prove to be fruitful of
results in future years.
REPORT
ON THE
Civil Veterinary Department, Burma
For the Year ended the 31st March 1929.
CHAPTER I.—CONTAGIOUS DISEASES—CONDITIONS
DURING THE YEAR .
The deaths reported from contagious diseases show a fall from
41,955 in the previous year to 25,639 during the year under report. As
usual Rinderpest, Foot and Mouth and Anthrax were the principal
contagious diseases of livestock in Burma.
Rinderpest.—The total deaths from Rinderpest amounted to 22,061.
The Akyab and Amherst districts show the highest degree of mortality,
the former recording 15,419 and the latter 2,861 deaths from this
disease. In no other districts did the recorded deaths exceed one
thousand, the next highest in order being Henzada with 939, Thatôn
with 915 and Bassein with 606. The total recorded deaths due to con-
tagious diseases throughout the year work out to 4.3 per thousand as
against 7'0 per thousand in 1927-28.
2. In Akyab the heaviest deaths occurred in the months of June to
October in the Ponnagyun and Pauktaw townships and the Kyauktaw
township was the only one really free from disease. Inoculation was
carried out on 43,353 head of cattle and it was at first performed by
three parties : one under the Deputy Superintendent, one under the Ins-
pector of Sandoway and the other under the Inspector of Akyab. When it
was seen that this staff was not sufficient to control the disease three
more Inspectors and nine Veterinary Assistants were sent from Burma
in the month of July after which five parties were formed. These five
parties remained till the end of the year when one Inspector and nine
Veterinary Assistants were recalled. Two of the Inspectors are still
on special duty. Deaths began to abate in the month of November
1928 and had practically ceased by the end of March the totals for that
month being only 18. Captain S. R. Rippon, I.V.S., Superintendent,
Civil Veterinary Department, visited the district during the month of
November 1928, when he conferred with the local officials, made
suggestions for the improvement of the work and submitted a report on
2
REPORT ON THE CIVIL VETERINARY DEPARTMENT, BURMA,
the state of affairs at the time. His report and that of the Deputy
Commissioner indicate that in Akyab it is extremely difficult for
the segregation rules to be followed. The local custom is to let loose
the cattle to graze in the jungles when they are not wanted for agricul-
tural operations. Outbreaks of disease occur when the cattle are living
under these semi-feral conditions and are only detected when they are
collected for ploughing. The result is that all the cattle in the village-
tract are potential in-contacts and it is practically impossible to
segregate all in-contacts at the beginning of the ploughing season.
Another difficulty is that cultivators in one village-tract frequently own
land in another village-tract and it is impossible to prohibit cattle from
moving unless large areas are to be left fallow. The provision of
separate drinking places for in-contact cattle is also a difficulty. The
Deputy Commissioner remarks : " In these circumstances I think all that
can be done is to insist on strict segregation of all sick cattle and to
prohibit cattle movement altogether from any infected village-tract until
the animals have been inoculated and re-inoculated. I have issued
orders accordingly for dealing with any outbreak this year.
It will be
necessary of course for the Veterinary staff to inoculate and re-inoculate
promptly all cattle in the affected village-tracts. There need be no
difficulty in getting cattle owners to agree to inoculation. Faced with
the alternative of inoculation or penning up their cattle in pens
constructed at their own expense they generally prefer the former."
3. In the Amherst district there was a recrudescence of the disease
particularly in the Kawkareik township, the total number of deaths
recorded for the district being 2,861 as against 1,059 in the previous
3'ear. The Deputy Commissioner notes: " The mortality would possibly
have been greater had it not been for the successful inoculation of the
remaining cattle. I am glad to note the good work done by the staff in
this direction. Better results could have been obtained were the
reports of the outbreaks received in time. As it was, the ignorant Karen
owners were very slow in bringing the outbreaks to the notice of the
authorities and the consequence was that preventive measures could
not be taken till the infection had widely spread. " The highest monthly
mortality was 735 in July 1928 and the lowest recorded was 8 for the
month of November 1928. The outbreak has much abated but has
not yet been completely stamped out. The total deaths for the month
of March were 123.
4. In Henzada the disease was prevalent in the Lemyethna township.
The Deputy Commissioner reports : " The segregation rules have been
effectively enforced." The highest mortality was in the month of July
1928, the deaths for that month recorded being 239. By March 1929
the disease had practically died out there being only 16 deaths recorded
in that month for the whole district.
FOR THE YEAR ENDED THE 31ST MARCH 1929.
3
5. In Bassein the total mortality from rinderpest was 606, being
mainly in the Yegyi township. The Deputy Commissioner reports :
" The Subdivisional Officers report that the rules are fairly well under-
stood and observed except in rare cases. At the conferences of
Village Headmen the importance of the observance of these rules was
explained to the headmen. Reports of outbreaks of disease were
promptly attended to by segregation and the prohibition of movement
of animals from infected to non-infected areas. "
I visited the
scene of the outbreak in February 1929 and can confirm the above
statement. I found complete stoppage of cattle movement along the
main roads connecting 19 villages. The only complaint I had was from
some rice millers who desired to have the restrictions removed. The
mortality was greatest in the month of April 1928, the deaths for that
month being 103 and for March 1929 the figure stood at 26.
6. Last year in the Katha district 8,325 deaths were recorded. The
number reported during the year under report is only 19 which shows
that the disease has now been brought well under control. This result
is largely due to the energetic action of the late Deputy Commissioner
in enforcing strict preventive measures and in obtaining the co-operation
of the headmen. The present Deputy Commissioner notes " Segre-
gation rules, generally, are understood by village headmen and cattle
owners, and where they were ignored, drastic disciplinary action was
taken and heavy punishments were inflicted on them." During the year
under report it was only necessary to inoculate 1,387 head of cattle
against 12,889 cattle in the previous year.
7. In the Thalôn district the disease still exists but the figures show
a fall from 1,168 deaths recorded last year to 915 deaths in the year
under report. The disease occurred in every township in the district
and there is a good deal of evidence to show that it was brought in
from Siam through the Shanywathit-to-Hlaingbwe route. The Deputy
Commissioner reports : " Township Officers and the Subdivisional
Officers report that Cattle Disease Rules 12 and 13 have been widely
made known to all village headmen in the district and villagers under-
stand the rules and appreciate the value of inoculation."
The only districts from which no deaths from Rinderpest have been
recorded are Kyaukpyu, Tavoy, Mergui, Kyaukse, Minbu, Thayetmyo,
Mandalay, Upper Chindwin and Lower Chindwin.
8. Anthrax.—Of the other contagious diseases Anthrax was prevalent
in most districts, the total recorded mortality from this disease being
1,515 as against 1,598 for 1927-28. The greatest number of deaths
occurred in the Akyab district which had 413, the next highest being
Amherst with 178 and the next Bassein with 174. An outbreak of this
disease occurred among horses in Rangoon and an investigation was
made by the Special Veterinary Research Officer and the Superintendent,