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Even with these averse conditions, small staff, inadequate supply of
serum and faulty segregation it is pleasing to see that from year to year
the department is gaining the appreciation and good will of the general
public and the agricultural classes who are yearly more willing to come
forward and have their animals treated both for contagious as well as
non-contagious diseases. But there is heaps of room for expansion of the
department if anything like a lasting benefit is to be done.
70. The question of the control of contagious diseases imported from
Nepal and other Indian States bordering on the United Provinces was to
be discussed along with the question in general as it affects the whole
of British India at the last Agricultural Conference held at Pusa in
December 1925, but it was printed too late for a general discussion and
had to be postponed until a future date.
71. Although Government from time to time have issued orders on
the subject of rabies to district and municipal boards but very little
attention has been paid by these bodies and the Government are there-
fore requested to issue strict orders to them on the matter in question.
This is an important disease which should be adequately controlled at an
early date by legislation as it is not only a contagious disease of the
cannine race but is contracted by men and other animals through bites
from rabid animals. An ever-increasing number of people have to go
yearly to the Pasteur Institutes in different parts of India for treatment.
72. Every municipal board and notified area should be ordered to
collect all homeless and stray dogs at certain intervals and if not claimed
within a short time they should be painlessly destroyed as they are the
source to a great extent for carrying the disease. It is a crying disgrace
and an eyesore to visit any large Indian railway stations see the hungry,
mangey, homeless pariah dogs prowling about. I know it will be con-
tended that if these were destroyed you have the jackals and other wild
animals who can become rabid and also the cost of destruction. In
answer, I would say by destroying your pariah population you do away
with a large incident towards the spread of the disease. On the point of
money, a tax of, say, Rs. 2 per year per dog should be levied on all dog-
owners in the large towns and notified areas and they would be given in
exchange a brass disc with a number which has to be attached to a
collar worn round the dogs' necks. Any dog found without such a disc
should be impounded and the owner should pay a fine before the dog was
released as it is done in many countries of Europe and elsewhere.
73. I should like to bring to the notice of Government the inade-
quate provision for veterinary work in the two districts of Almora and
Garhwal. These vast tracts of mountainous countries have only two veteri-
nary assistant surgeons in each district, where it is impossible for even
a very energetic man to do more than an average of 10 miles daily and
where everything is transported by pack animals of various breeds and
classes of animals. Almora has got two veterinary dispensaries, whereas
in Garhwal there is not even one.
74. The Superintendent of the Agra circle, who toured in the Garhwal
district last year, reports to me that there is an urgent and crying need
for immediate adequate staff, both for the control of contagious diseases
as well as veterinary dispensaries where the people can have their animals
treated for non-contagious diseases. Dispensaries should be opened at,
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