Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1884 — PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. [ARTICLE]

PLEURO-PNEUMONIA.

Provisions of the Bill Passed by the United States Senate. As amended and passed by the Senate the pleuro-pneumonla bill providing for the establishment of a Bureau of Animal Industry and the extirpation of contagious cattle diseases provides that the Commissioner of Agriculture shall organize in his department a bureau of animal Industry, with a chief who shall be a competent veterinary surgeon and who shall investigate and report the condition of the domestic animals of the United Btates and the causes of contagious, infectious, and communicable diseases among them. He shall also collect snch other information on those subjects as may be valuable to the agricultural and commercial interests of the United States. For the purposes of the bureau the Commissioner of Agriculture is authorized to employ a force not to exceed twenty persons at any one time. The Commissioner Is to appoint two competent agents, who shall be practical stock-raisers or men experienced in commercial transactions affecting five stock, who shall report the best manner of transporting and caring for animals and the means to be adopted to suppress and extirpate pleuropneumonia and other dangerous contagious or communicable diseases. The compensation of such agents is fixed at $lO per day. The commission is to prepare as early as possible such rules and regulations as may be necessary to extirpate the diseases named, and certify such rules, etc., to the executive authority of each State and Territory, and invite the co-operation of such executive authority In the execution of the act of Congress. When the rules, etc., shall have been accepted by such executive authority, the commission may expend in the State so accepting so much money as shall be necessary for the purposes of the investigations contemplated by the act and for such disinfection and quarantine measures as may be necessary to prevent the spread of disease from, one State or Territory into another. In order to promote the exportation of live-stock, a special investigation shall be made as to the existence of contagions diseases along the dividing line between the United States and foreign countries and along the transportation lines from all parts of the United States to the’ ports from which cattle are exported, and re--ports made to the Secretary of jhe Treasury, who shall co-operate with the State and municipal authorities, corporations, and persons engaged in the transportation of neat cattle by land or water, in establishing regulations foB the safe conveyance of cattle and preventing the spread of dtseaee; and the Secretary of the’ Treasury is authorized to take such steps as may be necessary, not inconsistent with the act, to prevfent the exportation of oattla affected with any contagious disease, especially pleuropneumonia. Transportation companies are forbidden to transport cattle affected with any contagious or communicable disease from one State or Territory to another, but the so-called splenetic or Texas fever is exoepted from the category of communicable diseases so far as regards the transportation of cattle to market. Violations of the act by railroad companies or vessels is declared a misdemeanor on the part of the manager or captain, punishable by a line not to exceed $6,000 or imprisonment not to exceed one year, or both. It is made the duty of the United States District Attorneys to prosecute cases. The sum appropriated for the purposes of the act is $160,000 (instead of $250,000 as appropriated by the House).