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Annexe Q.
REPORT OF THE COLONIAL VETERINARY SURGEON.
General Statistics.
The total number of cattle admitted to the Government Depôts for the year was 42,098, a decrease on the previous year of 17,901. In Kennedy Town 37,982 were admitted, a decrease of 17,837 on last year, due to the fact that during July, August, and September no cattle were exported to Manila owing to restrictions imposed by the Manila Government. In Kowloon 4,116 cattle were admitted, a decrease of 64 on last year. In Kennedy Town 151 cattle were rejected alive as unfit for food and in Kowloon 6 were rejected.
The total number of pigs admitted to Kennedy Town was 168,682 against 186,728 in 1907. The dealers attribute the falling off to the floods on the North River from which district many pigs come.
The total number of sheep admitted to Kennedy Town was 30,118 against 28,849 in the previous year.
Disease in the Depôts.
Foot and Mouth Disease. This disease was more or less prevalent during the year. In the early part of the summer the disease was of a very virulent type but it became much more mild towards the end of the year.
Anthrax.-Four cases of Anthrax occurred, three of them in June and one in October. The three cases in June were all in one shipment and all died within three days of arrival. The case in October was in a bullock that had been in the Depôt for 10 days.
Rinderpest.-Cases of this disease were met with throughout the year and the Chinese importers state that the disease was prevalent on the mainland. As a rule the dealers send down only those cattle that appear to them to be healthy but as these cattle have been in contact with sick cattle, some develop the disease after arrival. On the 5th and 7th September two lots of cattle were admitted to the Depôt suffering from Rinderpest and these were slaughtered by order of the Sanitary Board. No compensation was payable as the cattle were sick on arrival in the Colony.
Black Quarter-One calf, about nine months old, died from this disease in the Depôt. Parasites.-A few cases of whipworm (Tricocephalus affinis) were found in young animals but probably many more exist as this worm owing to its small size is not easy to find unless by careful searching. It does not appear to be of much economic importance.
Large numbers of filaria were found in the walls of the aortas of both Chinese cattle and water buffaloes. These have been described by Lingard as occurring in India and have also been found in cattle in the Straits Settlements. They give rise to an atheromatous condition of the blood vessels but do not appear to be fatal. I have not been able to find the embryo form in the blood.
The following biting flies have been identified and are the two most common flies in the cattle sheds: (1) Stomoxys Calcitrans and the (2) horn fly (Lyperosia Irritans). Both flies cause cattle a good deal of annoyance. One specimen of the Tabanidæ was caught but has not yet been identified. These flies are not common in Hongkong. The identification of these flies was done by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
Buildings.
There were no alterations or new buildings at Kennedy Town.
In March the new Slaughter House and Animal Depôt at Ma Tau Kok was completed and occupied and the old buildings at Hung Hom handed over to the Canton-Kowloon Railway. The new building while satisfactory is not so easily accessible as the old one.