9

to be recovered for products received from the Muktesar labora-
tory during the period under report. This figure includes also
the value of 116,440 doses in hand on 31st March 1924.

44.  The attention of Government is drawn to the large
balances outstanding at the end of the period now under report,
and the preceding year. District boards budget a certain sum
as being sufficient to cover the cost of the average amount of
serum used. When, however, a widespread outbreak occurs
their funds are not sufficiently elastic to meet this extra expen-
diture, and so it cannot be met. Tbe expansion of the subordi-
nate staff also throws additional financial responsibilities on
these local bodies, with the result that considerable sums must
be set aside to meet the cost of the extra serum which the addi-
tional staff requires. In some cases district boards have directed
veterinary assistant surgeons not to order extra serum without
permission, thereby causing considerable delay, and loss to cattle
owners who are, after all, the persons who keep the boards going.

45.   Suppression of contagious diseases should be a provincial
charge. There appears to be no solid reasons why one district
should spend considerable sums in suppressing outbreaks when
others on the border may not have to pay out a farthing. For
example, Champaran, which has a very small income from road
cess and other sources, spent Rs. 12,760 on sera, a sum which it
can ill-afford to spare from its roads and other public works.
The same remarks apply to Purnea, Ranchi, Palamau and the
Orissa districts.

46.  Government should meet the cost, as is done in Madras,
the Punjab, the Central Provinces, the United Provinces and
Bombay, and to this end proposals are being placed before the
Development Board for opinion. The cost during 1925-20 is
estimated to be about one lakh of rupees.

                                 TABLE IV.

            NUMBER OF ANIMALS TREATED.

47. Including the veterinary assistant surgeons in charge
of the hospitals at Ranchi, Palamau, Dumka and Begusarai,
seventy-four assistants were employed on touring duty against
seventy in 1922-23. Five new posts were created, viz., at Khagaria
for the north Gangetic area of the sadr subdivision of Monghyr,
at Warisaliganj in Nawada subdivision, at Gaya sadr (second
additional), and at Ramgarh and Dhanwar in Hazaribagh. Of
these, the posts at Khagaria, Ramgarh and Dhanwar were