Animal welfare

“ Looking back to the formation of the first society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, we find since that time a gradual awakening to the duties man owes to those below him in the scale of animal creation. The titles of those societies and their objects, as defined by their charters, show that at first it was considered sufficient to protect animals from cruel treatment: very few people gave thought to the care of those that were without homes. ”

“ Not only has human life been thus saved, but animal life also. State-medicine and sanitation have received an immense impulse. The good that has already resulted is simply incalculable; nevertheless, in the eyes of a set of ignorant fanatics who infest this country, all experiments “involving cruelty to animals” ought to be prevented at any cost. ”

“ The justice practised among animals is, in a certain degree, negative. With the exception of protecting their young, hunting and plundering in troops, uniting for common defence and sometimes for individual assistance, it consists more in prevention than in action. A sick animal who cannot arise from the ground, or an imprudent one who has fallen over a precipice, receives neither medicine nor nourishment. If he cannot cure himself, nor relieve himself of his trouble, his life is in danger: he will neither be cared for in bed, nor fed in a prison. ”

“ This is necessary not only to prevent disease spreading to other stock on the farm, but for the convenience of nursing them, giving them medicines, and also to place them in the very best position for a cure. Often a little timely care and nursing will save and restore an animal, which, if permitted to run with the stock, and take its chance, would unquestionably be lost. A sick animal as truly needs attention as a sick child. ”

“ Animals dying by accident, of course, are exceptions, but if diseased animals, animals dying a natural death, and animals out of condition are eliminated, the quality of food supplied from any individual farm may be approved so far as the animal itself is concerned. ”

“ 'Comrades!' he cried. 'You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. ”

“ Cleanliness is so essentially necessary in every apartment and department of a kennel, that no continuance of health in the hounds, or excellence in the field, can be expected without it. They are individually innately clean; and will never, if they can avoid it, dung near where they lie. Air, fresh straw, and ample room for the occasional expansion of their weary limbs, are requisite for the invigoration of the frame, and the preservation of health. Hounds confined in a body are more liable to disease than the same animal single, and in a state of unrestrained liberty ”

“ First, let all humans inform themselves of the inevitable and eternal cruelty by the means of which only can animals be compelled to perform before revenue-paying audiences. Second, I suggest that all men and women, and boys and girls, who have so acquainted themselves with the essentials of the fine art of animal-training, should become members of, and ally themselves with, the local and national organizations of humane societies and societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. ”

“ We have seen that the first section of the animal industry act provided for an investigation as to the condition of the domestic animals of the United States, their protection and use, the causes of contagious, infectious, and communicable diseases among them, and the means for the prevention and cure of such diseases. ”

“ Article 3
⁠For the purposes of this Law, animals include livestock and poultry and other animals that are raised by man or are legally captured.
⁠Animal products include animals' meat, rawhides, raw wool, down, viscera, fat, blood, semen, spawn, embryos, bones, hoofs, heads, horns and tendons as well as milk and eggs which are liable to cause the spread of animal epidemics.
⁠Animal epidemics are infectious and parasitic animal diseases.
⁠Animal epidemic prevention means the prevention, control and elimination of animal epidemics as well as the quarantine of animals and animal products. ”

“ In the absence of any systematic and efficient government protection in this line, the stock owner can only protect his sound herd by the rigid exclusion of all animals that are not of his own breeding, or in case of purchase, by an exhaustive inquiry as to the occurrence of sickness or deaths in the herd from which he buys, and by the professional examination and test of every animal to be bought. Even then he must promptly separate, test, and, if necessary destroy any animal that proves unthrifty, or which by cough, diarrhœa, wheezing or other sign gives evidence of probable tuberculosis. ”

“ The necessary precautions by way of food and shelter to safeguard animals against general diseases and to protect them from various forms of infection are not observed by animal owners as fully as would be expected from the present knowledge of those subjects. The losses from disease resulting directly from the lack of such protection are estimated at between three and four hundred millions of dollars annually. Besides this enormous financial waste there is the physical suffering and death of hundreds of thousands of animals. ”

“ Rest of the animal is absolutely essential while the disease continues, and is itself an effectual remedy in mild cases.
Besides the diseases enumerated, there are occasional epidemics, such as black tongue, black foot, or foot root, &c., which carry off great numbers of animals. Remedies for these are frequently not discovered, and the epidemic is allowed to run its course unchecked. The only preventives are such care, food, and management as the experienced herdsman knows to be best suited to the maintenance of the health and thrift of his stock. ”

“ Every large establishment should have a warm, properly ventilated, and well-lighted house, comfortably littered down with clean straw, to be used as a hospital, and every fowl should be removed to it upon showing any symptoms of illness, even if the disease is not infectious, for sick fowls are often pecked at, ill treated, and disliked by their healthy companions. Bear in mind that prevention is better than cure, and that proper management and housing, good feeding, pure water and greens, cleanliness and exercise, will prevent all, or nearly all, these diseases. ”

“ Where such inhumane and cruel treatment is given animals those responsible ought to be impressed with the unfairness to the animal as well as the economic loss occasioned by inflicting such unnecessary and merciless treatment upon their helpless and uncomplaining subjects. The very nature of the veterinarian's work affords him constant and frequent opportunity to convince those who are responsible for keeping animals in this manner, that it is inhumane and unprofitable. ”

“ Much progress has been made in this direction by the studies of the division of animal pathology, but work ought to be extended, in cooperation with local authorities, until the danger to human life arising from this cause is reduced to a minimum. ”

“ Notes of affection in man. Symptoms in man. Prevention and treatment in man. Prevention in animals: exclusion of contagion, immediate and mediate; close infected pastures and roads, stop all movement of bisulcates, disinfect all boats, cars, places and things exposed, exclude visitors, guarantees with strange animals, quarantine and disinfect arrivals, exclude fresh animal products, fodder and litter, wash, disinfect soiled clothes. Inoculation undesirable. Treatment in animals: cleanliness, dryness, disinfection, segregate sick and well, gaseous antiseptics, liquid ointments. ”

“ The first society in America organized for the express purpose of prevention of cruelty in animal experimentation appears to have been the American Antivivisection Society, founded at Philadelphia in 1883. The object of the society, as defined by its first charter, was "the restriction of the practice of vivisection within proper limits, and the prevention of the injudicious and needless infliction of suffering upon animals under the pretence of medical or scientific research." ”

“ The change from animal life on the broad prairies and woods of a temperate [Pg 149] zone, to life in stables of crowded cities and yards of farmers, many of which are in any thing but a sanitary condition, and to the experience of daily exposure and labor, and ofttimes to ill treatment and improper food, induces disease no less surely among animals than among the human race. ”

“ Without dragging the case to light again by mentioning the names of those concerned, we may mention that not many years ago a highly respected member of the profession was, at the instigation of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, prosecuted for practising unsoling for the relief of side-bone. ”

“ Article 17
⁠The units and individuals engaged in animal raising, slaughtering, marketing, isolation and transportation as well as in animal product manufacturing, marketing, processing and storing shall, according to the provisions of this Law and the regulations of the administrative department for veterinary medicine under the State Council, do a good job of animal epidemic prevention, including immunization and disinfection. ”

“ It is well for the conservation of the wild life of the country that leadership in the control of injurious species has been delegated to a governmental organization that is concerned with the welfare of the various forms and with the administration of wild-life refuges, one that is charged with the enforcement of wild-life conservation laws, and one that recognizes the desirability of preserving representatives of all forms of wild life on suitable areas. ”

“ In the first he groups domestication, intentional destruction of animals for various reasons, protection of animals for other reasons, and the introduction of new forms. In the second he deals with changes in natural environment and the influence on animals, cultivation, civilisation, and the accidental or unintentional introduction of creatures for the most part classed as pests. An entirely different method of grouping or analysis of results would be the dividing of those from which man derives benefit from those which are detrimental to his welfare. ”

“ If the publication of the present work should throw some additional light on the good qualities of this noble animal; if it should enable us to derive more advantage from the services that he can render — to train him more expeditiously and fully for the discharge of those services — to protect him from the abuses to which he is exposed, and to mitigate or remove some of the diseases which his connection with man has entailed upon him ”

“ It is impossible in the limits of a single article to discuss adequately all of the essential factors involved in bringing about the desired protection of domesticated animals. Great improvement has been made in the methods usually referred to under the term of the care of animals, such as gentle handling, proper exercise, suitable food and shelter. Betterments along these lines will be made as fast as the acquisition of new knowledge of their physiological requirements permits. ”

“ Prudence demands that we should handle such animals with great caution, and a thoroughly glandered animal 127had much better be killed at once than endanger other animals or the lives of human beings, and the more so as the chance of recovery in such a case is very remote. ”

“ But where the specimen is badly afflicted, run down in flesh, refuses to eat, and the discharge has reached a yellow or green condition, it is best to kill the animal, if it is not especially valuable. It may be and generally is the cheapest policy in the long run.
At any rate, the hutch occupied by an afflicted animal must be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected before other animals are allowed to occupy the hutch. ”

“ Man, dog, cat, horse, cattle, sheep, goat, hog, deer, etc., are subject to the disease either naturally or experimentally. The disease is confined commonly to dogs, because the dog naturally attacks animals of his own species and thus keeps the disease limited mainly to his own kind. Naturally the dog follows this rule, but on the other hand, in the latter stages of the disease he usually goes to the other extreme and even attacks his own master, etc. The dogs that are the most dangerous and do the greatest damage are of the vicious breeds. ”

“ I would therefore endeavour to give a few general rules for the guidance of those who have a new pet of some kind, which they wish to domesticate and tame.
To begin with animals; suitable food, a comfortable home, means of cleanliness, and exercise are essential to their health and comfort. These four requisites are seldom fully attended to. Often a large dog is kept in a back yard in London chained up week after week-kept alive, it is true, by food and water, but without exercise, and with no means of ridding himself of dirt and insects by a plunge now and then into a pond or river. ”