886 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



hereafter be considered as quite the contrary. In former 

 times, or toward the end of the last century, the murrain of 

 cattle was considered as a kind of venereal disease, and, while 

 this view lasted, great caution was observed in regard to the 

 flesh and the milk. Since it has been ascertained, however, 

 that this is not a syphilitic condition, the meat has been con- 

 sidered as wholesome. This is now known to be an entirely 

 erroneous assumption, and the greatest possible care should 

 be taken to avoid using the meat or the milk in any way. 

 9 C, February, 1872, 23. 



PREVENTION AND CURE OF TYPHUS IN CATTLE. 



Dr. Declat has published a report of certain experiments 

 instituted by him for the prevention and cure of typhus in 

 horned cattle, taking the occasion of a severe outbreak of the 

 disease in France in the early part of February, 1871. In the 

 first stable he visited he found eight animals, of which num- 

 ber one was dying with the fever, a second was badly at- 

 tacked, and a third had fallen and could not get up ; all the 

 others being more or less under the influence of the disease. 

 They had all been officially condemned to destruction as in- 

 curable. He first proceeded to administer a draught, consist- 

 ing of 80 grains of carbolic acid in 5 to 6 quarts of water, to 

 which was added a hypodermic injection of 125 grains of car- 

 bolic acid, with the addition of a new substance, the precise 

 nature of which he does not disclose at present. Two other 

 animals were treated by a veterinary surgeon who was in at- 

 tendance upon the herd. Out of these seven animals, three 

 died and four were cured ; while of another series similarly 

 affected, six were cured out often ; and, in the opinion of Dr. 

 Declat, none of them could have survived without this treat- 

 ment. 



A similar treatment of animals not actually under the in- 

 fluence of the disease was followed with the happiest results. 

 Of twenty-five to which the above-mentioned application was 

 made, not one contracted the disease ; the doctor, therefore, 

 thinks himself entitled to urge the prophylactic treatment as 

 of the utmost importance in similar cases. As the result of 

 his researches in this direction, he contends that, by means 

 of his method, generally applied, typhus may always be pre- 

 vented ; can almost always be cured while in a state of incu- 



