5
help feeling that to secure the full benefit to the country from them there should
be some veterinary supervision. This will be secured when, in due course, the
proposed scheme for a Civil Veterinary Department is brought into force, as I
presume it will be before long. Until then the hospitals remain an interesting
evidence of what can be done by local effort. This effort is in most cases that
of the Local Fund Board, but in Násik it is supplemented by the local branch of
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals under its energetic Secretary,
Sister Rosalie. In due course a large number of cases of disease in cattle,
non-communicable as well as communicable, will be dealt with by these hos¬
pitals and much empirical barbarity be prevented. Surat, Sholápur, Belgaum,
and Dhárwár some time ago made enquiries about the cost of a Graduate and
possibly might be persuaded to start hospitals, or at least dispensaries, and it
would be well if especially the Central and the Southern Divisions took action
in this useful direction. The cost is not great and the benefit should be con-
siderable, if only by the flood of light which will, in due course, be thrown
on the veterinary requirements of the country. Some might be very easily
started, thus it would be a simple matter to convert the College of Science
Veterinary Hospital at Poona into a local Veterinary Hospital and Dispensary
with a view to securing it an increased practice and a grant from Local Funds.
Surat Hospital was presented with a considerable sum of money, but owing to
want of promptitude in accepting and utilizing it, the donor withdrew the
grant. Násik has been promised a good donation for the building fund of
its hospital. These facts show that this movement has a considerable amount
of interest in the public mind.
It is a pleasure to me to record that His Highness the Gáikwár of Baroda
has started similar hospitals at two places in his dominions—Visanagar and Dabhoi
—and has posted Graduates in charge. It is to be hoped this enlightened policy
will lead other Princes to follow his good example, and that His Highness will
increase the number of hospitals and so extend the benefits of Veterinary
Science widely throughout his dominions.
As has been already hinted, some States show a tendency to leave their
scholars to chance after graduation, instead of employing them ; I cannot too
often insist that this is false economy, the best plan being to use to the utmost in
their studs, stables, and paddocks, and so on, the men whom it has cost money to
educate. I want to impress fully on the minds of the Political Officers,
Diváns, and Chiefs the advisability of carrying out the policy expounded by
Lord Reay in delivering the diplomas in March last that each State should have
in it at least one veterinarian scientifically educated ; this may be brought about
either—
(a) by employing a Graduate, the cost of which is some Rs. 80 per mensem, or
(b) by sending to the College a young man of good physique and general
education for three or four years at a monthly cost of some Rs. 40 on
an engagement to serve the State for a fixed period after graduation.
I need scarcely insist that unless students have good physique and a fair
general education our difficulty in converting them into veterinarians is much
increased and the final results are the less liable to prove satisfactory.
As I have elsewhere insisted, uniformity in veterinary inspection for re-
pression of communicable diseases will be absolutely essential to secure thorough
success in India. There can be no doubt that in the near future British India,
like other countries influenced by modern civilization, will have its Civil Veteri-
nary Department, but the efforts of this department will need the aid which
educated veterinarians of Native States can give, or those efforts will be frequently
thwarted by disease smuggling. Such being the case, it behoves the officers of
Government to—
(a) on every suitable opportunity impress on the Princes and Chiefs the
necessity for veterinary care of their animals ;
(b) have ready a body of men fully educated with a view to their being fit
to be entrusted with these important duties ;
(c) make education of State students as inexpensive and as thorough as
possible.
B 387—2