CLINICAL ARTICLES.

Annual Report of Proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts, etc., for the Year 1902.

THE Annual Report of the Board of Agriculture for the past year opens with a paper from the pen of the Chief Veterinary Officer on Contagia, in which a brief account is given of the discoveries that have during the last half century given precision to our notions regarding the actual cause of the contagious diseases of the domesticated animals. This is followed by an account of the incidence of the scheduled contagious diseases during 1902,

this being also contributed by the Chief Veterinary Officer. The mysterious outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease which occurred in Kent in the month of March is described at length, and it is admitted that the most searching inquiries failed to give the clue to the introduction of the disease. In the paragraphs relating to swine fever, complaint is made that there is often considerable delay in the notification of outbreaks, and that in many instances pigs are ill for days, some of them even dead, before the facts are brought to the knowledge of the Board. We have no doubt that this complaint is well founded, but pig - owners have also been known to complain that after intimation of the supposed existence of swine fever has been promptly given the measures appropriate to the suppression of the outbreak have not always been carried out by the Board with all the celerity that is desirable.

The Assistant Secretary also contributes an account of the work of the Animals Division for the year, and the Report concludes with the usual Statistical Tables.

Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. Report of Proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts, for the year 1902.

THE report by the Chief Inspector of the Veterinary Branch of the Depart­ment shows that during the past year the efforts made to exterminate swine fever have had a gratifying measure of success. During the twelve months the outbreaks detected numbered 166, being a decrease of 54 outbreaks as compared with 1901. The total outbreaks of glanders in 1902 numbered ten (as against five in the preceding year) and most of these are laid to the charge of diseased animals imported from England and Scotland. In one of the most serious outbreaks mallein was usefully employed to ascertain how many of the in-contact horses were infected, imd it was found that eventually the animals which responded to the first test ceased to react.

eLi: N I CAL ART I C L E S. --0--

CANCER CASES.

By C. CUNNINGHAM, M.R.C.V.S., Slateford, Midlothian.

IN these days' of "Cancer Research" and keen investigation the veterinary surgeon should help. Possibly he cannot do much. Carcinoma does not· play such a big part among the diseases of animals as in those of man. Still, hidden away in casebooks or borne in mind are doubtless details of many interesting cases, and these with the occasional living subject may be of some little service.