The filthy practice of selling milk from cans should be discouraged, if not stopped. The cans are continually being infected by the street dust, to which infection is continually added the dirt gathered by the dipper and measure, so that after a few customers have been served the milk becomes filthy and the customers getting the milk from the bottom of the can get a filthy mass.

The so-called dangers in the use of bottles were strongly discussed in an open meeting of the board of health of Philadelphia a year ago, where a determined fight was made against the use of bottles by the milk dealers, aided by a few misguided physicians.

The result of this meeting was the indorsement of the bottling of milk, instead of the dirty milk can, to which is continually being added the dirt of a filthy dipper and measure. The majority of dairy farmers take pride in having clean bottles. Would that some of the city dealers would follow their example.

There are always those in each community who doubt the benefit of the inspection of milk, dairies, cows, etc., believing and fondly clinging to the theories of their grandfathers. It is believed by the leading physicians that a very large percentage of the diarrheal diseases and deaths of children below 5 years of age is due to improper feeding, and the diet of most of these children is milk. The following table shows the mortality from diarrheal diseases during the last six years:

In 1893, when no general dairy inspection existed in the District, there were 451 deaths from diarrheal diseases of children under 5 years. In 1898, when the inspection of dairy farms extended over one-third of the source of our milk supply, the number of deaths from diarrheal diseases of children under 5 years was but 231, showing a decrease of about 50 per cent.

If the inspection was general we believe there would be a corresponding decrease of deaths from these causes, clearly showing the 'value of milk inspection to the health of the community.

INSPECTION OF LIVE STOCK AND ABATTOIRS.

During the year, whenever opportunity was afforded, your inspector visited all places where animals are sold or slaughtered in the District. In this connection, attention is again called to the necessity of a proper and sanitary cow barn on Market space. The present public cow barn has been reported several times during the year as being in a filthy condition, and at times it was extreme cruelty to confine cattle in this place, where the mud was knee deep and the animals exposed to the elements and without any facilities for proper watering and feeding.

This barn, if repaired, would be invaluable to this office if the testing of animals with tuberculin becomes general in the District and becomes part of the work of this office. Several times old dairy cows were condemned at this place, sent to Beuning abattoir, and the carcasses were slashed and saturated with kerosene oil or with tricresol. About 80 per cent of all the beef used in Washington is Western dressed meat, which has been inspected by the Bureau of Animal Industry, therefore the people are protected to a large extent, as far as beef is concerned. A large amount of pork and mutton is inspected in the West.

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Most of the diseased meat of this city is killed at six or seven small slaughterhouses scattered through the suburbs, and which are in a bad condition and not fitted for the sanitary killing of food animals on account of bad floors, no ventilation or drainage, and an improper water supply for washing carcasses and flushing the floors.

These places kill many old, diseased dairy cows, which constitute nine-tenths of all the diseased meat on the market, said animals being killed at unusual hours frequently, and when your inspector appears, killing frequently ceases at once, as an understanding probably exists between owner and butcher. Most of this diseased meat is sold by a few butchers, and is sold to cheap eating houses and to the poor people in the alleys at a low price. These are the people who need our protection, inasmuch as they are not sufficiently intelligent to determine between sound and unsound meat. During the past year a general inspection was made of all slaughterhouses doing business in the District, as far as could be ascertained. This alludes only to premises where there exist slaughterhouses. Many butchers kill calves and sheep in sheds in rear of their homes in the suburbs and send the viscera to refining factories. Beside the Benning abattoir, there are six slaughterhouses in the District in which cattle are killed; in four of them throughout the year, the other two during the winter months. Only one or probably two of these places are in a proper condition to kill cattle. There exists no good and sufficient reason why any cattle should be killed in any of these places, since the best cattle belonging to the owners of these small houses are killed at Benning. Three of these slaughterhouses are nuisances, and should be closed, as the water supply is bad, no ventilation exists, the drainage is vile, and the cattle have no cover and are seldom fed or watered while awaiting slaughter.

The same objections do not exist to the killing of small stock, hogs excepted, as the viscera can be easily handled. The proper solution of the meat question lies in the establishment of a large public abattoir or a number of small abattoirs connected with each other, which could be rented at a nominal figure to butchers who do their own killing, thus removing the great objection which butchers have to the establishment of a large, single abattoir, as their butchers in the latter could not do the killing and would be idle part of the time. while in the small houses their time would not be lost and the fat and offal could be used by the individual as they deem fit.

All meat sold in the District should either bear the stamp of the Bureau of Animal Industry or the District health office. This would solve the diseased-meat question in a simple way. Farmers or

butchers who kill stock in Virginia or Maryland should be required to bring their carcasses, with the liver and lungs attached, to some central point to be established by this department, where an inspector can be stationed at certain times, and the meat, if healthy, can be properly stamped. The most expert meat inspectors are baffled when required to inspect dressed meat or meat cut into small pieces, as an expert butcher can strip a carcass of most diseased portions very readily. This shows the fallacy of not inspecting all meat at the time of slaughter.

This office has a good lay force which, if augmented with the proper technical force, would give this city an excellent meat-inspection force at a very small cost over what is now being paid.

If a public abattoir or series of abattoirs is not established, all

slaughterhouses should be licensed and made to conform with rules and regulations to be established by this department. Small slaughterhouses, if not properly constructed and managed, are common centers for the spread of such diseases as tuberculosis, hog cholera, and swine plague, and such dangerous parasitic diseases as trichinosis, echinococcus disease, gid, wireworm, and other animal parasites, these diseases being spread by maintaining hogs and dogs, and by the presence of swarms of rats. Especially should we prevent the keeping of hogs at slaughterhouses.

Attention is called to the lack of any specific legislation on the subject of so-called "monkey veal," or calves killed too young.

A great amount of veal is sold in this city which is unwholesome and dangerous as a food on account of the age at which the calves are killed. Hundreds of calves between 10 and 20 days old are thus killed and thrown on our market, being cut into pieces before being sold. Food inspectors do not condemn this meat owing to this lack

of legislation.

We are unable to give any specific rule as to what should be considered as the minimum age or weight. Authorities agree that calves less than four weeks old should not be killed for veal. Our inspectors would labor under the disadvantage of attempting to determine age. If a weight standard is set, the difference in breed and feeding of calves would also make it an impracticable standard. As the mawkish, slimy appearance of "monkey veal" is well-known to our inspectors, we believe an act suppressing its sale as such would be sufficient, and would be of great interest to the health of the city on account of the well-known purgative action of this immature meat.

SOUTHERN OR TEXAS FEVER.

There are no facilities in the District for receiving Southern cattle infected with ticks, (Böophilus bovis), which are shipped here during the closed season (January 1 to November 1), and the practice is very dangerous to the stock interests of the District. During the fiscal year we were fortunate enough to discover two shipments of these cattle, and caused their immediate slaughter on account of the danger of Texas fever. These Southern cattle drop the ticks on the ground. These bear young, which attach themselves to our native stock, which become infected, and the greater number die of Texas fever. If the weather is cold, the ticks die when detached from their hosts; hence the open season (November 1 to January 1). An instance of the danger of this laxity in handling Southern cattle during the closed season was shown last spring at Silver Hill, Md., adjacent to the District, on a farm supplying milk to this city. The farmer bought a cow from a District dealer, and in less than two months the entire herd died of Texas fever, save the new cow. The farmer was financially ruined. One or two such lessons on a large scale in the District would show the danger of this practice of the railroad and steamboat transportation companies of unloading such cattle in the District. The United States courts have decided that these transportation companies are responsible for any losses occurring through their unlawful actions.

Inasmuch as the police department has an officer stationed at Bennings, he could assist this department very materially in observing at times the unloading of cattle, if he was properly instructed by your inspector.

RABIES.

During the year twelve cases were reported to this office, and through the courtesy of Dr. D. E. Salmon, Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry, inoculations of rabbits were made by the bureau officials to prove the disease.

It seems proper in this connection to mention the fact that in none of these cases has the inspector of live stock been called to inspect the dog or supervise the disinfection of the premises. This seems as important to the public health as our inspection of glandered horses in connection with an inspector of the Bureau of Animal Industry.

ACTINOMYCOSIS.

Three cows with this disease were discovered on dairy farms and condemned. Three cows were killed at local abattoirs and inspected at the request of the owners of the abattoirs. All cases were proven microscopically.

HOG CHOLERA.

This disease has been unusually scarce this year. A small outbreak occurred in the fall of 1898, but did not spread.

CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS OF HORSES.

A very serious outbreak of this disease occurred last winter among horses in the District and adjacent counties of Maryland and Virginia in a very fatal form, destroying many horses. The cases were not reported to this office. The disease occurs on farms where old, musty hay or corn covered with fungus has been fed to horses. The cause of the disease is not proven, but there seems to be some connection between it and the feeding of the kinds of food heretofore mentioned.

GLANDERS.

But three cases of glanders were reported to this office during the year, and these were inspected in conjunction with the Bureau of Animal Industry. No doubt the District was saved from a severe epidemic of glanders during the past year by the prompt action of this department, acting in concert with the Bureau of Animal Industry and the State veterinarian of Virginia, in preventing a public sale of army horses at the corral of the Quartermaster's Department at St. Asaphs, Va., said horses having been exposed to glanders. Before any sale was permitted all horses and mules were tested with mallein and those reacting as glandered were destroyed.

TRICHINOSIS.

A small number of examinations of pork was made during the year, proving its existence among our pork. All pork should be microscopically examined before being sold, as a large amount of it is diseased with this parasite, without any physical signs of the disease. In 1893, 1,500,000 hogs had been examined microscopically by the Bureau of Animal Industry and 3.05 per cent had trichinæ.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

That the pay of the inspector of live stock and dairy farms, who shall be a veterinarian, be put on a level with that of other inspectors