Commissioner of Agriculture 319 



or two at least, the occurrence of a succession of active and highly 

 infecting cases. This increases the danger in exact ratio with the 

 increase in the duration of active disease on the premises, and is 

 one of the most potent factors in retarding that success, or in secur- 

 ing that delay of success, that so often follows the application of 

 this rigorous and oppressive rule. 



Heading between the lines, we can see the working out of this 

 wrong principle in the campaign against aphthous fever in Massa- 

 chusetts in 1902. The duration of the outbreak was 9 months 

 according to official reports (11 months if I may trust to informa- 

 tion received from stockmen), whereas the far more widely 

 extended outbreak of 1870 lasted but 3 months, in spite of the 

 fact that no active official measures of any account were taken 

 against it. A writer, who did not see the disease in 1870, tells 

 us that: " There was a small outbreak of foot and mouth disease 

 in western Massachusetts and eastern New York in 1870." It 

 was, on the contrary, incomparably more widespread than that 

 in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont 

 in 1902-3. The invasion of 1870 started at Point Levis, spread 

 in Quebec and Ontario, crossed into New York and advanced 

 through Massachusetts and Connecticut to Rhode Island on the 

 south and New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine on the north. 

 It was quite as virulent as that of 1902, made a clean sweep of 

 every herd it entered, spared neither sheep nor swine, and at 

 intervals attacked dogs, fowls or even men. It cannot be dis- 

 missed as a slight or limited invasion by a puny infection. 

 Yet with all its impetus and universality, its passing was as 

 characteristic as its advance. It speedily attacked every ani- 

 mal in the herd, burnt out all available fuel, and disappeared as 

 quickly as it had come, as thoroughly extinguished as a fire that 

 has completely burnt itself out. There was no official isolation 

 of the herd, no slaughter, no disinfection beyond that voluntarily 

 undertaken by the owner, no stopping of markets, no supervision 

 of manure, no destruction of hay or fodder. The season (winter) 

 secured the shutting up of the cattle, the general dread and dis- 

 gust of the disease prevented trading in the animals, the cattle 

 trade was almost exclusively eastward, every herd speedily 

 immunized itself, and when the wave of infection had reached 

 the seaboard it quickly terminated its own career. 



