REVENUE DEPARTMENT.
♦
AGRICULTURE.
♦
CALCUTTA, THE 31ST AUGUST 1915.
RESOLUTION—No. 8675.
READ—
The Annual Reports of the Veterinary College and of the Civil Veterinary Department, Bengal,
for the year 1914-15, with the Director of Agriculture's review thereon.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL A. SMITH was Principal of the Bengal Veterinary
College, and Mr. P. J. Kerr was Superintendent of the Civil Veterinary
Department, Bengal, throughout the year. Babu Dibakar De, Senior Lecturer
of the Bengal Veterinary College, acted as Assistant Principal of the College
throughout the year during the absence, on furlough in England, of Mr. E. H.
Brand. Mr. A. D. Macgregor,M.R.C.V.S., continued to be under training at the
College throughout the year. He accompanied the Superintendent of the
Civil Veterinary Department on tour for training in district work during the
College vacation. Lieutenant-Colonel Smith made no tour during the year,
but was away from Calcutta for 10 days in order to act as a member of the
Board of Examiners of the Madras Veterinary College. Mr. Kerr spent 112
days on tour. Severe outbreaks of glanders in certain districts and other
important duties interfered with his routine tours for inspecting the work of
the veterinary assistants in the province.
2. There was a slight increase in the number of students at the College
during the year, the number on the roll at the end of the session being 96,
of whom 84 were stipendiary students, as against 91 in the preceding year,
including 76 stipendiary students. The results of the year's work were satis-
factory. Nineteen students graduated from the College at the close of the year,
the percentage of passes at the final examination being 82.60 as compared with
73"53 in 1913-14. The proposal which was under consideration for improving
the pay and prospects of the Subordinate Veterinary Service of the province
was sanctioned immediately after the close of the year, and the new arrange-
ments which were brought into force with effect from 1st March 1915 will,
it is hoped, attract a larger number and a better class of students to the
College. The proposal submitted by this Government last year for the
addition of a fully qualified European officer to the teaching staff of the
College to raise it to the level of other similar institutions in India and to
enable it to keep abreast of the modern developments of veterinary science
has been sanctioned by His Majesty's Secretary of State for India, and a
suitable officer will be recruited for the post as soon as funds permit.
3. The Governor in Council is glad to notice that the work of the
Raymond Research Institute continued to be satisfactory and that the popu-
larity of the institution is increasing and a steady progress is being main-
tained in the diagnosis of contagious and obscure diseases. Besides the
examination of pathological and other specimens received from Provincial
Veterinary Departments, Army Department, local private practitioners, both
European and Indian, and the general public, and the supply of materials to
the Imperial Bacteriologist, Imperial Serologist and Major C. A. Lane, I.M.S.,
for their work, auto-vaccine was prepared in the Laboratory, with which
some newly-imported horses of the Army Remount Depôt were successfully
treated, and with the preventive vaccine for fowl cholera, also prepared
here, some healthy pheasants of the Zoological Gardens, among which the
disease broke out, were inoculated with satisfactory results. Some lantern
slides of systems of different kinds of contagious diseases among cattle were
prepared with the object of exhibiting them in cattle fairs and shows as a
means of encouraging people to take more interest in the veterinary
profession.