VETERINARY SCIENCE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5595, 22 March 1943, Page 3

VETERINARY SCIENCE

INTERESTING LECTURE BY MR M. E. DODSON At the conclusion of the annua] meeting of the Te Awamutu branch of the Farmers’ Union on Friday night, Mr M. E. Dodson, B.V.Sc., gave an address on veterinary science, in the course of which he explained how this science could be of value to the farmer. The benefits could be classified, roughly, under four headings: (1) The curing of the sick, (2) preventive medicine, (3) nutrition, and (4) live-stock economics.

Dealing with number one, Mr Dodson said that while it was the biggest field., the others should not be overshadowed by it. Preventive medicine was obviously the most important, and the speaker gave examples of what came under the heading of sickness, including diagnosis of disease and its elimination, thus preventing its spread to the rest of the stock. Instruction on hygiene was another form of preventive medicine, especially with pigs and young stock. Calves, he said, were very susceptible to disease, especially pneumonia, diarrhoea, and worms. Pigs, due to their rapid growth, were susceptible to malnutrition. Prevention of the introduction of disease to the farm could be assisted by careful examination of stock before introdudcing to the farm. Dealing with live-stock economics, Mr Dodson said that the farm was really a factory where raw products were converted into finished articles, animals being the machinery, theessential difference being that a factory could be closed down or rapidly changed over to produce a different kind of goods, whilst a farm could not be, nature continuing to work; and to change a farming policy took some years. A pastoral farm could not be changed to an arable one, or vice versa, without a lot of work and expense. Thus the economics of farm lands were a specialised study, and the economics of the live-stock were, even more specialised, and really only in its infancy. The speaker predicted that it would eventually grow into a large and important study.

At the conclusion of his address Mr Dodson was accorded a vote of thanks, the chairman remarking that the Te Awamutu Veterinary Association was fortunate in securing the services of a veterinarian with Mr Dodson’s qualifications and practical farming experience.”