ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
CIVIL VETERINARY DEPARTMENT, BENGAL,
FOR THE YEAR 1908-1909.
PREFACE AND GENERAL ADMINISTRATION.
1. I held charge of the Civil Veterinary Department throughout the
year and spent 269 days on tour, and travelled 2,034 miles by road and 18,016
miles by rail.
2. All dispensaries were inspected except Hazaribagh, and the work of
most of the Itinerating Veterinary Assistants ; outbreaks of disease affecting
horses and cattle were attended and I visited various shows and fairs in Bihar
and Bengal as well as the cattle farms at Pusa, Siripur, and Kalimpong.
3. The first step in the reorganisation of the Department as sanctioned
by the Secretary of State, was the appointment of Inspectors, to replace
the Staff Veterinary Assistants whose main duty was to attend outbreaks of
disease. The want of a sufficiently large inspecting staff is seriously felt
but cannot be remedied for some years, at least, as most of the Assistants
from which grade these men are drawn, are too inexperienced to take charge
of such important posts.
PART I.—VETERINARY INSTRUCTION.
4. Twenty-one Veterinary Assistants were sent to Muktesar to undergo
a special course of training in various inoculation methods. The practice of
sending Assistants to Muktesar and Bareilly will be discontinued from this
year, as the training received by them during their course of study at the
Veterinary College is now considered to be sufficient.
5. Assistants have also received instruction in mounting flies, blood and
the preservation of post-mortem specimens.
6. The appointment of farriers to the different district dispensaries and
hospitals is receiving attention. One man was posted to Bhagalpur, where he is
now doing good work under the Veterinary Assistant's supervision.
PART II.—TREATMENT OF DISEASE.
7. Contagious diseases.—Table II gives the number of deaths from con-
tagious diseases during the year under report. The total number recorded
this year among equines is 301 and among bovines 16,456 as compared with
298 and 11,028 respectively in last year's report. Statistics of deaths from
contagious diseases have been compiled from the returns sent to the District
Magistrates by the Chowkidars, through the Thana officers. As both Chowki-
dars and police are in most cases incompetent to correctly diagnose or other-
wise classify diseases of cattle, the returns are not accurate. Whenever there
has been obvious inaccurate reporting, explanations have been called for from
the district authorities concerned, or enquiries instituted. Howrah, Nadia,
Khulna, Gaya and Angul submitted no figures. Explanations asked for from
Nadia show that no returns are regularly kept; in Howrah and Gaya diseases
are not differentiated,!hence the table could not be filled in, while Angul offered
no explanation. Other contagious diseases accounted for 2,059 deaths in 11
districts.
8. (a) Equines.—Glanders: 26 deaths from glanders and farcy were
reported by the District Officers, excluding 132 cases that occurred in the
Sodepure Pinjrapole.
9. The first outbreak in the districts was reported to this office from
Hooghly in the month of September 1908. During an inspection of the stables
in the jurisdiction of the Hooghly, Serampore and Bally Municipalities, several