ANNUAL REPORT

                                                     OF THE

                     CIVIL VETERINARY DEPARTMENT, BENGAL,

                                          For the year 1904-1905.

                                                   PREFACE.

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1.     Charge.—Major F. Raymond was in charge of the Civil Veterinary
Department, Bengal, and the Bengal Veterinary College, until the 18th of
October, 1904, when he made over charge to me and went on leave. A
proposal for making the office of the Superintendent of the Civil Veterinary
Department and the Principal of the Bengal Veterinary College two indepen-
dent charges is now under the consideration of Government.

2.     Tour.—During the year Major Raymond was out on tour for 42 days
and travelled 489 miles by rail and 405 miles by road. I was on tour for 54
days and travelled 8,924 miles by rail, 257 miles by road and 398 miles by
steamer.

                               II.—TREATMENT OF DISEASE.

3.     (1) Contagious diseases, &c.—Table II gives the number of deaths from
contagious diseases during the year under report.

(a)  Equines.—There were 447 cases of deaths from Glanders and Farcy,
of which 413 cases were diagnosed in the district of 24-Parganas alone (93 cases
at the Belgachia College hospital and 320 cases at the Sodepur Pinjrapole,
which receives nearly all of its inmates from Calcutta). The existence of the
disease will be better shown up as soon as the Glanders and Farcy Act is
brought into force in Calcutta. Very few other cases of equine contagious
diseases have been reported as will be seen from Table II.

(b)  Bovines.—Rinderpest, Foot-and-mouth and Anthrax were the principal
contagious diseases dealt with. The first-named largely predominated and
was most noticeable in the districts of Rajshahi, Patna, Shahabad and the
Sonthal Parganas. In Shahabad it was particularly rife.

4.     Table III shows that no less than 13,276 inoculations for Rinderpest
were carried out against 9,454 in 1903-1904. The percentage of deaths after
inoculation is very small.

5.     Foot-and-mouth disease again caused a large number of deaths in
Ranchi, which is the only district where it took anything like an epidemic form.

6.     Hæmorrhagic Septicæmia broke out rather badly in the Sonthal
Parganas, where 611 animals are reported to have succumbed to it.

7.     Anthrax.—This disease mainly appeared in the districts of Mymensingh,
Hazaribagh, and Ranchi. There were no other diseases of an epidemic nature
worth mentioning.

8.     Temporary veterinary aid was given to the districts of Hazaribagh,
Angul, Shahabad, Khulna, Jessore, Monghyr, Puri, Gaya, Manbhum, Howrah,
Darjeeling and the 24-Parganas and also to the Calcutta Municipal Gowkhanas
and the Zoological Gardens by deputing the Staff Veterinary Assistants to
inoculate cattle with anti-rinderpest serum and to give advice as to the
preventive measures to be adopted.

9.    It may be mentioned here that 8 Veterinary Assistants received
training in Rinderpest inoculation at the Imperial Bacteriological Laboratory at
Bareilly.

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