meat that the Department will be called upon to inspect under this law, but should the prohibition now enforced by certain continental governments be removed so far as regards inspected meats, as there is now reason to hope, there is no doubt but that the amount will be very large. The regulations adopted for this inspection are as follows: Regulations for the Inspection of Salted Pork and Bacon for Export. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, By virtue of the authority conferred upon the Department of Agriculture by section 1 of an act entitled "An act providing for the inspection of meats for exportation, prohibiting the importation of adulterated articles of food or drink, and authorizing the President to make proclamation in certain cases, and for other purposes," approved August 30, 1890, the following regulations for the inspection of salted pork or bacon for export, and the marks, stamps, or other devices for the identification of the same, are hereby prescribed: (1) Whenever any foreign country, by its laws, regulations, or orders, requires the inspection of salted pork or bacon imported into such country from the United States, all packers or exporters desiring to export to said country shall make application to the Secretary of Agriculture for such inspection; also, whenever any buyer, seller, or exporter of such meats intended for exportation shall desire inspection thereof, he shall likewise make application to the Secretary of Agriculture for such inspection. (2) The application must be in writing, and shall give the name of the packer of such meats, and, if the packer be the exporter, the probable amount of such meats to be exported per week or month for which inspection is requested; the name of the country, or countries, to which such meats are to be exported; the place at which inspection is desired and the date for such inspection. The applicant shall likewise agree to abide by these regulations, and to mark his packages as hereinafter provided. (3) Every package containing salted pork or bacon which has been inspected must be branded or stenciled both on the side and on the top by the packer or exporter, as follows: FOR EXPORT. (a) (Here give the name of the packer.) (b) (Here the location and State of the factory where packed.) (c) (Here give the net weight of the salted pork or bacon contained in the package.) (d) (If exported by other than packer, the name of the exporter.) (e) (Name of consignee and point of destination.) The letters and figures in the above brand shall be of the following dimensions: The letters in the words "for export" shall not be less than three-fourths of an inch in length and all the other letters and figures not less than one-half an inch in length. All letters and figures affixed to the top and sides shall be legible and shall be in such proportion and of such color as the meat inspector of the Department of Agriculture may designate. (4) The meat inspector of the Department of Agriculture, having, after inspection, satisfied himself that the articles inspected are wholesome, sound, and fit for human food, shall affix to the top of said package a meat inspection stamp, to be furnished by the Department of Agriculture, said stamps bearing serial numbers, and the inspector will write on said stamp the date of inspection. The stamp must be securely affixed by paste and tacks, in such a way as to be easily read when the package is standing on its bottom. Not less than five tacks shall be driven through each stamp, one at each corner and one in the middle. The stamp having been affixed it must be inmediately canceled. For this purpose the inspector will use a stencil plate of brass or copper, in which will be cut five parallel waved lines long enough to extend beyond each side of the stamp on the wood of the package. At the top of said stencil will be cut the name of the inspector, and at the bottom of said stencil will be cut the district in which inspection is made. The imprinting from this plate must be with blacking or other durable material, over and across the stamp, and in such manner as not to deface the reading matter on the stamp; that is, so as not to daub and make it illegible. The stamp having been affixed and canceled, it must immediately be covered with a coating of transparent varnish or other substance. Orders for stamps must be made by the inspector on the Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry. The inspector having inspected and found wholesome the contents of said package and affixed the stamp thereon, will issue to the packer or exporter a certificate of inspection, reciting the time and place of inspection, the name of the packer, the name of the exporter, and the name of the consignee and country to which exported. He will also place on said certificate the number of the package. One certificate only will be issued for each consignment and must designate the stamp numbers of all the packages contained in said consignment. (5) The inspector will enter in the stub of his stamp book the information given by the packer's brand on the package inspected, and will report daily on blank form (m. i. 1) the number of stamps issued on each date and all the information required by said blank. (6) The certificates of inspection will be furnished by the Department of Agriculture and be issued in serial numbers and in triplicate form. The inspector will deliver one copy of said certificate to the consignor or shipper of such meat inspected, one copy he will attach to the invoice or shipping bill of such meat, and the third copy he will forward to the Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Department of Agriculture for filing therein. He will likewise make a daily report on blank form (m. i. 2) of all certificates issued on that date, and fill out said blank with all the information required thereon. (7) Whenever the inspection of any salted pork or bacon is requested by an exporter or shipper at any other place than where packed, the packages containing such meats are to be opened and closed at the expense of the exporter, and said packages must be branded or stenciled in the same manner and contain the same information as prescribed in the case of inspection for a packer. J. M. RUSK, Secretary. The new duties connected with this inspection of animals and meats, which have been assigned to this Bureau during the last year, will be seen by the above statement to be numerous and responsible. They involve a greatly increased amount of work, but their fulfillment will undoubtedly be of enormous benefit to the country, as they will insure the protection of our live stock from imported diseases and furnish a guaranty to foreign buyers that our meats are wholesome and that our export animals are free from the contamination of any communicable malady. INVESTIGATION OF REPORTED DISEASES. During the year the Bureau has been requested to investigate many cases of diseases supposed to be of a contagious nature, including a considerable number of cases of disease supposed by the owners of the animals to be contagious pleuro-pneumonia or foot-and-mouth disease. Careful investigation in every case showed that these suppositions were incorrect and that the affection was either an ordinary sporadic disease, or that it was tuberculosis or some other equally common disorder. There have been no cases of pleuro-pneumonia found except in a small district on Long Island and an equally small district in New Jersey, which has long been infected, but from which the contagion is now nearly or quite eradicated. There have been several reports of foot-and-mouth disease in the interior of the country from persons who had never seen the European disease known by this name. Investigations have, however, shown in every case that the diagnosis was not justified by the facts, and that the actual disease was of a sporadic nature and not contagious. There has been no real foot-and-mouth disease in the United States since March, 1884, when it was introduced into the Portland quarantine station by cattle from Great Britain. The contagion in this case was disseminated to a small extent outside the quarantine station, but it was immediately recognized and eradicated by prompt measures. With the three months' quarantine to which all bovine animals are subject, and the inspection of all other animals coming into the country, it is next to impossible to introduce foot-and-mouth disease without its being immediately recognized, and it would certainly be impossible for it to reach the interior of the United States without being discovered by the inspectors of the Department of Agriculture. A recent circular issued by the State veterinarian of the State of Missouri, which was headed, "Foot-and-mouth disease," and which gave a somewhat detailed description of the symptoms of a disease which the State veterinarian thought might be the European foot-and-mouth disease, has excited considerable comment abroad and has been considered by some veterinary authorities as a demonstration of the existence of that disease; but careful investigation made by one of the inspectors of the Bureau demonstrated that the disease was not of a contagious nature, and that it had little, if any, resemblance to the foot-and-mouth disease of Europe. There had been no cattle or other animals taken to Missouri which had been imported from any country where foot-and-mouth disease exists, consequently there was no explanation of the appearance of a foreign contagion in that part of the country. Again, but one or two animals in a herd of twenty or thirty were affected, while with foot-andmouth disease not one in a herd of that size would escape. In most cases there was little fever, the sores in the mouth were not of the nature of vesicles, and it is doubtful if any affected animals had any lesions about the feet which were the result of the disease. So small a proportion showed signs of lameness that this probably resulted in those animals from accidental causes. There should be no difficulty in diagnosing at once such a disease as this as distinct from the foot-and-mouth disease of Europe. The foot-and-mouth disease could not originate spontaneously. It must have a point of origin by contagion which would connect the disease with the same malady in some other section of the world; again, footand-mouth disease is extremely contagious, being rapidly and unmistakably transmitted from animal to animal and from herd to herd. attacks every animal in a herd, and not one animal in one hundred or even in a thousand exposed to the contagion escapes the disease, while the vesicles are prominent and unmistakable both in the mouth and about the feet. The increase in temperature and the fever are too marked to be overlooked. A disease with these characteristics has never existed in the interior of the United States. Rumors of such disease have been frequent, but they are started by people who are ignorant of the character of such diseases and who have had their imaginations excited by reading the accounts of these diseases in other countries. Indeed, the reports are generally made in such a way as to show that the description of the disease is taken from some publication on the subject and not from the disease itself. This is the only possible explanation of the resemblance of the symptoms given in such reports to those observed in the disease suspected, for, when the disease itself is examined, such characters as they mention can not be found. The report of the Bureau inspector, the main points of which were concurred in by the State veterinarian after a careful investigation, should be sufficient to remove any fears of the existence of this dis ease in the United States. Indeed the report of the existence of this disease would have attracted little attention had it not been for the great interests at stake and the evident desire of parties in other countries to find a pretext to sustain the restrictions and prohibitions now in force against the introduction of American cattle. These parties have always been ready to give credence to the wildest rumors and to put the worst construction upon any report in regard to disease in this country. The order that all American sheep and swine should be slaughtered on the English docks on account of foot-andmouth disease, which has been enforced for the last ten years, and the unhesitating acceptance of the recent rumors of the same disease are sufficient evidence of the correctness of this statement. The United States Department of Agriculture now has a large and capable force of veterinary inspectors, whose whole time is devoted to the investigation of diseases, and the official reports of this Department are worthy of the same respect and credence as the government reports of any of the countries of Europe. Usually when a government makes an investigation of a rumored disease its report is believed without question. The numerous attempts which have been made to discredit the conclusion of this Department after the investigation of the disease in Missouri, without giving any adequate reason for not accepting it, show that these parties are influenced in regard to. American questions by motives which do not apply to the same subjects when affecting other countries. SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS. The original scientific research of the year has been mostly confined to southern or Texas cattle fever and to the infectious diseases of swine. With both very important results have been obtained from the scientific as well as the practical point of view. SOUTHERN OR TEXAS FEVER OF CATTLE. The discovery of a germ in the red corpuscles of the blood in this disease-a germ entirely distinct from bacteria but belonging to the protozoa-was mentioned in the report of last year. This notable discovery was abundantly confirmed by the investigations of the year just past, and an additional point in the problem has been brought to light. It has long been suspected by cattle owners that the appearance of the disease in northern cattle was in some way connected with the ticks distributed by southern cattle. This hypothesis has, however, been generally discredited by scientific men, and indeed the evidence in favor of it was very slight and intangible. It seemed, however, worthy of investigation, and the result has been to obtain indisputable evidence that the disease is produced by ticks from southern cattle. Ticks taken from southern animals and placed upon pastures which could have been infected in no other way, so infected these grounds that susceptible cattle placed upon them contracted the disease in the same length of time and were as seriously affected as were other susceptible cattle placed upon pastures in company with southern cattle. Again, young ticks that were hatched from the eggs of large ticks picked from southern cattle were placed upon susceptible animals and produced the disease. There are, consequently, two factors in the production of southern fever-first, the tick, and secondly, the protozoal microorganism which lives in and destroys the red blood corpuscles of the affected cattle. Where the tick obtains the protozoon is not yet known, but that the microorganism can be transmitted from one generation of ticks to another through the egg is demonstrated. It is important to learn through how many generations of ticks the germ can be transmitted without losing its virulence and whether there is any other means by which it gains access to the system of cattle in addition to being introduced by the punctures made by ticks. There are evidently ticks which do not harbor this minute parasite, because cattle susceptible to southern fever are frequently badly infested with ticks without showing any marked symptoms of disturbed health. On the other hand there may be means by which the protozoon gains access to the blood of cattle independently of the agency of ticks; but it appears from the investigations just made that in the great majority of cases cattle are infected by means of ticks. That is, the adult ticks drop from southern cattle and lay their eggs upon the pastures. The eggs hatch and the young ticks get upon susceptible cattle and produce the disease. If this supposition is correct it is of great practical importance. In the first place, susceptible cattle taken to the South for breeding purposes could be protected from the fever by keeping them in such a manner that they would not become infested by ticks. That is, they could be kept in stables not previously occupied by other cattle, bedded with clean straw and fed upon hay or grass cut from fields where no cattle had been for a considerable time. In the second place, it would seem that southern cattle might be rendered innocuous by washing them with some preparation that would destroy the ticks, or by holding them upon uninfected ground a sufficient time for the ticks which are upon them to mature and drop to the ground, but not long enough upon any one pasture for the young ticks to hatch and reinfect them. The probability of reaching important practical results is such that these investigations should be continued until the subject is thoroughly understood. SWINE DISEASES. The investigations of swine diseases have been carried on with the idea of determining (1) the relative prevalence of hog cholera and swine plague, (2) the value of protective inoculation by various processes as a preventive of hog cholera, and (3) to test the practicability of preventing those diseases by the use of the ptomaines or bacterial products developed by growing the germs in proper culture media. These researches have shown that swine plague is relatively more prevalent than was first anticipated and that it is probably the cause of as much mortality as is hog cholera. They also confirm our conclusion of last year that inoculation is not a practical or reliable method of preventing hog cholera. The investigations of the bacterial products have been very interesting, at least from a scientific point of view and as regards their application to the prevention of human diseases. This interest is increased at the present time by the announcement of the celebrated German investigator, Professor Koch, that he has discovered a remedy for tuberculosis. This remedy is now believed to be a product |