USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Veterinary Services Records

Collection

Identifier: MS0060

Staff Only

Content Description

The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Veterinary Services Records cover animal inspection and quarantine memoranda, procedures, forms, letters, and reports. Topics include export livestock; domestics, ruminants, and swine; organisms and vectors; restricted meat; restricted byproducts; and virus-serum control. There are materials related to the Animal Quarantine Station in Clifton, New York, 1949. Additionally, there are records on the Foreign Animal Diseases Advisory Committee, 1974; the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Industry Advisory Committee on Foot-and-Mouth Disease, 1947-1972; and files of court case involving George C. Bump and his failure to permit the depopulation of his poultry flock exposed to exotic Newcastle disease.

Dates

Creation: 1947-1974
Creation: Majority of material found within 1960-1969

Conditions Governing Access

Contact Special Collections for access.

Organizational History

The goals of the Veterinary Services program of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) are to properly manage cases of animal disease, and to advocate methods for maintaining healthy and productive animals. Veterinary Services began as the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), which was established under the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1884. The BAI set out to deal with livestock problems, most notably diseases. The bureau established several divisions, including those for dairy, animal husbandry, inspection, and quarantine. The organization of the BAI remained virtually unchanged for almost 70 years (the exception being its grouping with other bureaus under the Agricultural Research Administration from 1942 to 1953). In 1953, the BAI was abolished. Its functions were assigned to various branches of the new Agricultural Research Service (ARS), mostly to Animal Disease Eradication and Animal Inspection and Quarantine. These two branches merged in 1970 to form Veterinary Services, ARS. Veterinary Services was transferred to APHIS in 1972, and remained when APHIS was reorganized and superseded by an organization of the same name. Throughout its history, Veterinary Services has eradicated several diseases from the United States, including foot-and-mouth disease, cattle fever ticks, screwworms, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, exotic Newcastle disease, and hog cholera.