382 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



portation of the native cattle begins. In this last journey he 

 was accompanied by Professor Ravenel, of South Carolina, a 

 specialist among the fungi, and whose particular object was 

 to determine what part such plants played in the infection. 



Dr. J. S. Billings and Dr. Curtis, of the army, were also as- 

 sociated in the inquiry, having special reference to the micro- 

 scopic investigations. A second investigation by Professor 

 Gamgee, under the authority of the Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture, had reference to the subject of pleuro-pneumonia, in 

 the course of which numerous microscopic observations were 

 made by Dr. Woodward, of the Army Medical Museum. Full 

 reports on these various subjects made by the different gen- 

 tlemen are embodied in the volume referred to, which appears 

 in quarto form, with numerous well-executed plates in chro- 

 mo-lithography. It is also accompanied by a report by Mr. 

 Dodge, the statistician of the Agricultural Department, upon 

 the history of this Texas cattle disease, also known as splenic 

 fever, in which the devastations of this peculiar native mal- 

 ady are traced back into the eighteenth century. 



This report was considered by General Capron as simply 

 preliminary, and further investigations are indicated as im- 

 portant. Among those especially mentioned are inquiries as 

 to the best mode of arresting the contagion, and the proper 

 way of transportation of the cattle northward. He thinks 

 that a general law of the United States, in the interest of 

 public health, of an enlightened humanity, and of the cattle 

 trade, should regulate this traffic, not only throughout the 

 Gulf States, but on the great routes throughout the country. 



INOCULATION FOE RINDERPEST. 



In an article upon inoculation for rinderpest, detailing the 

 result of several experiments instituted in Russia on this sub- 

 ject, the following conclusions are arrived at: 1. Rinderpest 

 must be considered as a typhus of a peculiar character, which, 

 while having some resemblance to the epidemical typhus in 

 man, differs from it in its permanent course, and the persistent 

 occurrence of a cattarhal condition in general, and a mucous 

 coating of the intestines in particular. 2. The rinderpest is 

 disseminated principally from the steppes of Asia and other 

 provinces of Russia. The region, however, where it first arose, 

 and the causes of its origin, are unknown. 3. The contagion 



