SECRETARY'S REPORT.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN: The past year has been a very busy one in Association circles, and I trust that much of the work done may be found here to-day in the evidence of numbers and interest shown in this meeting. Hundreds of letters of inquiry have poured into my office, and at the close of my work on Monday morning not one remained unanswered or unrecognized. We gather together to-day with a new element among us in the delegates from no less than ten States and local associations, while our members are numbered among the most active in every Association circle in the land. Our Association numbers to-day 270 members actively participating in our work, and in addition we have the support and encouragement of some seven on the roll of Honorary Membership; while to-day some thirty more have knocked at your door for admission. Surely these are propitious times and signs of healthy growth. During my incumbency as your Secretary, in round numbers, 150 new members of the profession have sought your favorable consideration. Should this ratio of increase continue during the balance of the ten years from 1888 to 1898, your membership will in all probability reach 1000 in our country. Much of this newly-added power comes from the youth and strength of the future profession of our wonderful country, and it places upon the shoulders of those trained in the service a deep responsibility in guiding this great power and moulding its untold strength, in lines and ways of great use, for the upbuilding of our veterinary structure in America. On every side, in State and county and city, are budding forth associations of veterinarians, all training their guns upon this parent Association looking for the word of command to so direct the powers of their ammunition in telling directions where it may not be spent on vacant space and be lost forever in the din and smoke that follow in its train. Upon us falls the grave responsibilities of centering our greatest forces upon all questions of a national character, that the mere local work should devolve in its chief detail upon the lesser organizations, where time and position fit it better to rest and be performed.

In national sanitary work, in national meat inspection, in national laws as to contagious and infectious disease, the commercial interests of our nation at home and abroad command our salutary support and influence in sustaining our place among the nations of the world as the

great producer of food and food products for the whole earth. National and State laws to better protect our people from disease, direct and indirect, should be yearly considered by this Association. Sanitation, in its wide and inestimable importance, should receive at our hands a broad consideration, that public sentiment might better be moulded to yield to our profession its chief place as sanitarians in all this work the world over. National ethics, of which I hear whispering sounds down along the line of our numbers, should here be given an impetus that shall award it its proper status in country, State, and city. Veterinary jurisprudence, in the hope of better and more justly uniform laws, is before you to-day, and I trust it may sound the alarm down along the ranks, that shall carry sufficient force to return to us again in a clearing away of the debris of useless and worthless decisions that make up the laws to-day that govern the decision of these important points to us, and thus free us from the injustice we suffer, and remove us from the unfair criticisms that often make us the laughingstock of our ignorant employers.

Our country, so rapidly assuming a first place among the nations as a producer of the finest specimens of every form and kind of domestic animals, should command our attention in enlightening the world on breeding statistics, and the relative part thus played in heredity, etc., should be a self-assumed task upon our part. In addition, our Association should be doing some work looking to the avoidance of the importation of diseases heretofore unknown in our breeding districts, and taking fitting recognition in the future of such outbreaks as the fatal one of "Dourine" in Illinois.

Surely, the older nations of the earth are looking to this youthful, unrestrained, but always practical nation, to play a more important part in the veterinary annals in the world's work in the future than we have done in the past. From this organization should emerge the plans and directing forces, and I hope we shall not be unmindful to day of the opportunities that are within our grasp. The World's Fair, but two years hence, offers a fitting opportunity for us to step forward into line with all the older veterinary worlds, and I trust this Association will take proper and active steps looking to an international meeting in Chicago in 1893. We should be early in the field with our announcements, and thus have all future gatherings of veterinarians planning in unison their work, that it may better fit into the work for us to do in 1893.

Sources of veterinary education in our land should ever be watched by us with a zealous eye, and we should be quick to respond in just recognition to every movement upon the part of veterinary educational institutions to increase their power and to broaden their course of instruction. We cannot control our schools, but we can do that which is better in a nation living under a republican form of government-we can mould and fashion public opinion throughout our land that shall justly meas

ure to each educational source its value and worth, and thus strengthen our own place in national work that shall make us a more useful body in the future than we have so filled as an ornamental and obstructive body in the past.

These are a few of the thoughts suggesting themselves to me since I have filled your office as Secretary, and I take the liberty of incorporating them in my report.

During the past year our Association has been represented in every veterinary gathering held in our country, through the faithful support and assistance of our Assistant State Secretaries, by my presence as your representative, or by letter in your behalf. I have given aid and encouraging support in every meeting of veterinarians, and urged their union with us in carrying forward the work that is ours to do. Through public press and veterinary journals I have endeavored to strengthen our organization in every way that I could; keeping before them at all times something of interest to awaken them to a keener sense of duty. Through printed matter, the output of your Publication Committee, I have placed in every nook and corner of our broad land some seed to germinate that I hope in the future will flower to shed fragrance on this body.

I have compiled for your use a list of veterinarians, now numbering 1300, spread over the entire country, their correct addresses, and of what colleges they are graduates of. I have almost completed a complete file of every member of this organization since its birth, and only the lack of records so imperfectly kept has forbidden me to trace in completion their entire history as a part of the records of this Association. As books of reference for future officers of this Association these books are invaluable. The sending forth of at least three statements of their respective indebtedness to the Association of each member has been a valuable reminder to all, and your increased treasury, with a tenfold multiplication of your expenses, attests the value and efficacy of this work.

No member henceforth can be one of our number without a proper record being on file, showing his qualifications, etc., neither can he be in possession of our certificate of membership without there being on file, in sustaining his claim, his signature to our Constitution and By-laws, a copy of which has been placed in every member's hands, and one to each new one with his application blank.

For this meeting some nine hundred programmes, railroad notices, etc., have been sent out, and at this writing less than ten have been returned undelivered. The newspaper press has been in many ways notified of our existence, and no opportunity has been lost to bring our organization into that just prominence she so richly deserves.

All this, and much more, has been performed in your interest and

welfare, and it has been at a fearful expenditure of time and labor. The pecuniary compensation is wholly inadequate to assure you of the continuance of this work, unless our good fortune shall drop on one of you whose heart will grow wrapt up in the work as I have, and found my mind continually planning. I would, therefore, recommend the consideration of an increased salary as a stimulus to this work; and with the hope that some one will after to-day take up and make grander and better the work already done, and thanking you all for your warm support and encouragement, I give you notice at this time that there are no contingencies, or train of circumstances, that can lead me to accept this onerous position again. I, therefore, submit for your consideration my final report. W. HORACE HOSKINS,

Secretary.

REPORTS OF STATE SECRETARIES.

MICHIGAN.

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE P. O., INGHAM CO., MICH., Sept. 9, 1891.

SIR: The veterinary profession in this State, I think I am justified in saying, is in a very prosperous condition as far as amount of practice coming into the hands of the individual members of it; again, it is prosperous on account of the annual addition of educated members to its ranks, and as a consequence the status of it is ever rapidly rising.

The only organization that we can boast of is the Michigan Veterinary Medical Association, which has a regular annual meeting, at which topics of interest to its members are freely discussed. During the past summer the Ohio and Michigan Associations held a joint meeting that was very enjoyable as well as instructive.

In order that you may have some idea of the contagious diseases that we have to encounter from time to time, I enclose you some clippings from the report of the State Veterinarian, but have to add to it that for some, at present, unaccountable reason, purpura hæmorrhagica has prevailed in various parts of the State more than I ever knew it to before, so much so that I have been brought in contact with more cases this year than I have seen before in fifteen or twenty years.

Yours very respectfully,

E. A. A. GRANGE,

Assistant State Secretary.

LANSING, January 1, 1891.

E. A. A. GRANGE, State Veterinarian, to the Hon. H. H. HINDS, President of the Michigan Live Stock Sanitary Commission:

SIR: Since submitting my second biennial report I have had occasion to visit many counties of this State for the purpose of investigating alleged outbreaks of contagious disease in the various classes of our domestic animals. Among horses I have condemned some forty-eight animals as being affected with that loathsome disease known as glanders. Among cattle I have condemned a few head as being affected with a disease similar to consumption in man, but generally called tuberculosis when affecting bovines.

I have also had occasion to investigate an outbreak of rabies among cattle, the result of wounds inflicted by a mad dog.