The veterinary practitioner and diseases exotic to Canada.

Veterinarians, in clinical practice, regulatory field work, laboratory diagnosis or research, must work together as a team, each within his area of expertise in order to protect the livestock industry of Canada from exotic diseases. This freedom from many of the serious animal plagues has allowed the development of intensive animal production units with increased vulnerability to disease and in which the impact of disease outbreaks may be more serious. In differential diagnoses one should think not only of the classical exotic diseases such as vesicular diseases, swine fever and rinderpest in today's world, but one should constantly be on the outlook for any disease outbreak that does not quite fit the picture of the domestic diseases. From this standpoint the large animal practitioner is the very important "first line of defense" since, in all likelihood, he will be the first to see a disease exotic to Canada should that disease gain entry.