A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
History
A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
necessity for the establishment of a quarantine system, to prevent the
importation of certain cattle diseases from Europe, where they were then
prevailing to a deplorable extent. Acting on his advice, the government
created, in April, 1876, a quarantine station at Point Levis, Quebec,
and made the professor chief inspector for the Dominion, and this
position he still continues to occupy. In January, 1879, he was sent by
the Dominion government to the United States, to investigate the
lung-plague—pleuro-pneumonia—and visited New York, Long Island, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and the district of Columbia;
and on his return he reported the prevalence of this serious disease in
all the states he had visited. The result was that shortly afterwards an
embargo was placed on the importation of cattle from the United States
to Canada and Great Britain, requiring that they should be slaughtered
at the port of debarkation, within fourteen days after landing. This
action of the British government entailed a heavy loss on cattle
exported from the United States, but Canada, owing to her freedom from
the diseases, and the perfect condition of her quarantine system, became
a gainer in proportion to a large amount. Professor McEachran’s name
will ever be associated with the early history of the export cattle
trade of Canada, as one, who at the proper moment gave sound advice to
the government, which, being promptly acted upon, helped in these early
days to assist a trade that has since grown to vast proportions. The
efficiency of the quarantine for cattle under his management has been
thoroughly tested on two occasions, viz., 1885, when the contagious
disease, “foot and mouth,” or vessicular epizootic, was twice brought
into the quarantine from Great Britain, so thorough was the quarantine
that not only did it not extend beyond, but it did not even affect any
other cattle, of which there were several hundreds within the enclosure.
The prompt and effective manner in which pleuro-pneumonia was dealt with
in 1886, when that fell destroyer was imported in a herd of Galloways,
proved beyond doubt the efficiency of the quarantine, and the ability of
the inspectors to deal with contagious diseases. If Canada to-day is
free from contagious disease, it is due in a great measure to his energy
and knowledge of disease. In acknowledgment of his professional
attainments he was elected one of the original Fellows of the Royal
College of Veterinary Surgeons, on that body being raised to the rank of
a university in 1875, being the only one in Canada on whom that honour
was conferred. He has been intimately connected with the cattle ranching
business in the district of Alberta, Senator Cochrane and he being the
pioneers in that business on a large scale in Canada. Together they
visited Alberta in 1881, going _via_ the Missouri river to Fort Benton,
thence driving across the plains to where Calgary is now built. On his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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