the subjects required for the diploma in State veterinary medicine, some of which should be included in an Indian curriculum. In the interests of the student, however, it is very desirable that the course qualifying for entry to the provincial veterinary services should not take more than five years. We consider that the course should end in a degree, for which purpose it would be necessary to affiliate colleges giving such a course to a university. By conference between university and veterinary authorities, it should be possible to devise a satisfactory five years' course combining the necessary amount of science to qualify for a degree and the necessary professional training to qualify the student to practise as a veterinary surgeon. In our view, a satisfactory course of training for the provincial veterinary services could easily be provided in India. The subject has received careful attention from veterinary experts; the framework of a suitable course has already been constructed; minor adjustments are no doubt desirable but these can, we think, be settled without difficulty by conference between the university and veterinary authorities concerned. ESTABLISHMENT OF A CENTRAL VETERI- we 258. We have recommended that the course of training for the provincial veterinary services should be entirely separated from that for veterinary assistant surgeons. The question, therefore, arises whether higher veterinary education should be given at the existing veterinary colleges or at an all-India institution. Financial considerations will render the enlargement of the provincial veterinary services have recommended a gradual one but, even when those services reach the strength we have suggested, the number of appointments to be filled in any one province annually will not be large. It will certainly not be sufficient, in our view, to justify the expansion of the colleges in the matter of staff, equipment and possibly also of buildings, which would be necessary if two separate courses of instruction were given at all of them. Nor do we think that the number of candidates who would be in training at any one time requires the establishment of a new central veterinary college. We have examined the possibility of utilising the Imperial Institute of Veterinary Research at Muktesar as an educational centre. Apart from the considerations of interference with research work, and the manufacture of sera and vaccines, that this would involve, the inaccessibility of Muktesar renders it entirely unsuitable for the lengthy course of training required for candidates for the provincial veterinary services. As the primary function of those services will be the control and prevention of contagious disease, this course should either include, or be supplemented by, a short period of work at Muktesar but this is, in our opinion, all that this institution should be expected to provide. In present conditions, we consider that the most satisfactory method of providing a suitable curriculum is to be found in training candidates for the provincial veterinary services in all provinces at one of the existing veterinary colleges. Further enquiry would be necessary before a decision could be arrived at as to which of the colleges should be selected. for this purpose. The additional staff required to enable the college selected to undertake the training of men for the provincial veterinary services, in addition to that of veterinary assistant surgeons for its own province, should be provided by the Government of India. Any expenditure involved in the provision of additional equipment and possibly also of buildings should, we consider, be met by that Government as part of its contribution towards the eradication of epidemic disease in India, which is a matter of Imperial importance. To the extent that the selected college fulfilled the functions of an allIndia veterinary college, it would be a central agency for professional training and no alteration in the Devolution Rules would be necessary to permit expenditure on it from central revenues. The further question arises whether the higher training thus provided should be open to any student desiring to qualify himself for admission to the provincial veterinary services or whether it should be confined to candidates selected by the Government of India, provincial governments and Indian States. We consider it more probable, in present conditions, that an efficient veterinary service will be built up if the second of these alternatives is adopted and, therefore, recommend that the course should be open only to candidates nominated by the Government of India, provincial governments or Indian States who would receive a suitable stipend from the authority nominating them during their period of training. We recommend that, at the outset, one college only should be selected for this purpose because the first objective should be the provision at the earliest possible moment of an adequately staffed and thoroughly equipped institution which can provide the Indian student in his own country with the training which a fully qualified veterinary surgeon requires. When this object has been attained, it may be found that the demand for training of this character is such as to justify similar arrangements at a second college. THE STAFF OF THE VETERINARY COLLEGES. 259. The future of veterinary medicine in this country will largely depend upon the attention which is paid in the next few years to the staffing of the veterinary colleges. In general, an effort should be made to secure the best men available from whatever source for all colleges and the observations which we make in our chapter on The Agricultural Services, paragraph 568, apply with equal force to the recruitment of the staff of veterinary colleges. This staff should, we consider, form part of the new superior provincial veterinary services. The scale of pay suggested for these services is the present scale of the Indian Veterinary Service. As the teaching duties will be of great importance and the senior members of the staff will be expected to engage also in research, this scale of pay may not prove sufficient, in all cases, to secure men of the calibre required. Where necessary, therefore, local governments should be prepared to grant, as an addition to the ordinary time scale, special pay personal to the individual officer and based on his qualifications and experience. As a rule, special recruitment will be necessary, but officers in the ordinary line of the Indian Veterinary Service and the new superior provincial veterinary services should be eligible for appointment. No distinction in respect of quality of staff should be made between the college selected for training the superior staff and the colleges training veterinary assistant surgeons only. The qualifications required in the teachers may differ in kind, but not in importance. The scientific attainments of the staff employed in training candidates for the superior service must range over a wider field; but the successful training of recruits for the subordinate service will make equal, possibly even greater, demands on the skill of the teacher. Wide experience in their profession, as well as high pedagogic qualifications, will be very necessary in the instructors who will be called upon to provide the large number of veterinary assistant surgeons required by district boards and other bodies. The salaries that such bodies are prepared to offer in present conditions are low and no substantial advance in them can be expected, if the number of men we anticipate is to be employed. It follows that the technical training must be short and inexpensive but it does not necessarily follow that the officers provided will be inefficient, or unfitted for the work they will be called upon to undertake, if highly qualified and experienced teachers are secured by the colleges which train them. It is, we believe, only necessary to point to the very large number of men who would require training under our proposals, to justify the contention that the professors and lecturers at the colleges should be most carefully selected. The duties in which these officers and those engaged in research would be employed would be altogether different from those falling to officers employed in district work; thus, in those provinces in which there are veterinary colleges there would be two groups of veterinary officers, a relatively large group combating disease in the field, and a small group engaged in teaching and research. While, as in agriculture, a change between members of these two groups would at times be desirable, in general, it would be better that those who entered the educational branch and proved good teachers should not be tempted to abandon college duties by the prospects, or fancied prospects, of more rapid promotion in the larger district service. The building up of a good teaching staff would be facilitated if arrangements could be made whereby a lecturer in one provincial college could accept a professorship in another without prejudicing his pension rights or prospects. Local governments might not willingly part with a good young officer, but, if in one case they lost, in another they might gain by a system of free exchange between colleges, and the need for competent teachers is so great that we hope governments may take a broad view, and adopt regulations with respect to exchange of professors and lecturers which would be likely to strengthen the teaching profession. Six veterinary colleges will be available for the training of veterinary assistant surgeons for nine provinces and for the Indian States. We do not recommend additions to the number for the present. There will be difficulty, in certain cases, in providing an adequate staff for existing colleges. We regard it as important that the standard of training should be approximately the same in all cases. DISEASES OF ANIMALS. (i) INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE PROVINCES. 260. In no sphere has scientific research conferred greater benefits on RESEARCH ON agriculture than by the provision of means of controlling livestock disease and it may be added that India has no reason to be dissatisfied with the contributions which its scientific workers have made to world knowledge during the last thirty years. In view of the record of good work standing to the credit of the civil veterinary departments in this country, we consider it a hopeful sign that almost every expert witness who appeared before us dwelt on the existing lack of knowledge rather than on past achievements, and insisted on the need for greater attention to research. We have no intention of questioning this need; but, in reviewing the position, we have felt that, in some directions, scientific knowledge has already outstripped administrative action and it is for this reason that we have placed in the forefront of our proposals the creation of a large and well-trained executive service of veterinary surgeons qualified to apply laboratory discoveries to the control of disease in the field. 261. Before we deal in some detail with the work of the Imperial (ii) RESEARCH IN Veterinary Research Institute at Muktesar, we desire to emphasise the importance of research to students undergoing training. In Chapter XV, we discuss the desirability of associating teaching and research in connection with agricultural education and need here, therefore, only state our view that the quality of the veterinary surgeons of the future will depend, in no small degree, on the extent to which research is carried on at the colleges where they are trained. We agree with those witnesses who hold that, in addition to the work at a central research institution, investigation should be fostered in the provinces and, if this view is accepted, we consider that the natural centres for such work should be the veterinary colleges. We found, everywhere, evidence that the officers of the provincial veterinary departments take a keen interest in the work which is proceeding at Muktesar and we desire to see this interest continued among members of the enlarged provincial services. There is much research in which provincial institutions are likely to be called upon to share and it may be found necessary to establish one or more posts to be held by investigators free from teaching duties. A beginning in this direction has already been made in the Punjab where a post of Veterinary Research Officer has recently been created at the Lahore Veterinary College, but we consider that special posts will generally be unnecessary if the senior officers employed in the colleges are men of such calibre as to be well qualified to undertake research, and our view is that they should be expected and encouraged to undertake investigations in their own special spheres. 262. The question of establishing a central research institute for India. (iii) THE IMPERIAL does not arise. An institute is already in being which has to its credit a record of work which could hardly have been anticipated when, in 1890, the first Imperial Bacteriologist began his researches at Poona. There are certain questions in connection with this institute which we have to discuss. INSTITUTE OF VETERI- Their nature will be better understood if we give a brief outline of its history. The work originally assigned by Government to the Imperial Bacteriologist was "to investigate diseases of domesticated animals. in all provinces in India and to ascertain, as far as possible, by biological research both in the laboratory and, when necessary, at the place of outbreak, the means of preventing and curing such diseases. Investigations into rinderpest and surra were undertaken at once but Poona proved unsuitable as a centre for the investigation of rinderpest. For effective work on this disease, it was necessary to have at command hill cattle, which are highly susceptible to it, and it was this consideration which led, in 1893, to the removal of the laboratory to Muktesar in the Kumaon hills of the United Provinces at an altitude of 7,500 feet above sea level. In that year, a South African worker discovered that the injection into healthy animals of the blood, or blood serum, of animals recovering after rinderpest conferred protection for a short period. This discovery was followed up at Muktesar and, in 1901, a small quantity of serum was sent out for experimental use. The provincial departments were at first supplied with serum free but, as the work passed beyond the experimental stage and the demands for anti-rinderpest serum and for other products of the Institute became heavy, a charge for rinderpest serum was imposed in 1911 and for other products in 1917. In 1922-23, the charges were raised fifty per cent in order to close the gap between income and expenditure. Early in 1923, the Indian Retrenchment Committee recommended that steps should be taken to place the Institute on a self-supporting basis as it saw no reason why the central Government should produce sera and vaccines for the use of local governments at a financial loss. It was not, however, until 1925-26 that this aim was achieved. The surplus of income over expenditure in that and the following year amounted to about Rs. 4.5 lakhs. The small laboratory established in 1893 has now grown into an extensive institution. The Muktesar estate is 3,450 acres in extent; the greater part of this is managed as forest land under a working plan drawn up by the Forest Department, but some 730 acres, of which 200 acres are under cultivation, are retained for buildings and the maintenance of livestock. The area of the sub-station at Izatnagar near Bareilly is 800 acres, of which 700 are under cultivation. At this sub-station, sera for combating rinderpest and hæmorrhagic septicemia are produced in bulk, and, at Muktesar, attention is now concentrated on the more delicate work for which it is specially adapted by its situation, such as the standardisation of products prior to issue, the manufacture of products requiring closer expert supervision, a cooler environment, and special research work. The total production of sera and vaccines at Muktesar is now very large; in 1926-27, 6.6 million doses were manufactured, of which 6.2 million doses were issued. The bulk of these consisted of rinderpest serum, the figures of manufacture and issue of which were 57 and 5.4 million 5 c.c. doses respectively. The extensive scale on which sera and vaccines are prepared and the insistence that Muktesar should be self-supporting have given rise to the erroneous impression that this institution, |