328 Seventeenth Annual Report of the 



of time no such inquiry brought evidence of any center of infec- 

 tion, past or present. Meanwhile other lines of inquiry were 

 started. By telephone and telegraph, as well as by letter, every 

 animal that had been shipped from the infected yards at East 

 Buffalo, from October 1 to November was traced, and still the 

 source of infection seemed shrouded in darkness. 



That other cases had existed prior to those in Pennsylvania was 

 beyond dispute. In the apparent absence of any case of the malady 

 in New York, there was reasonable ground for doubt as to whether 

 the infection had ever been in the East Buffalo stock yards in an 

 active condition. The cattle that planted the infection in Pennsyl- 

 vania might have contracted it from stock yards, loading banks, 

 feeding places, or contaminated stock cars which they had passed 

 through on their way to Buffalo, and then have passed through the 

 Buffalo yards with the germs in their systems but as yet unde- 

 veloped into actual appreciable disease, or they might even have 

 taken the infection from foul cars in which they were carried from 

 Buffalo to Danville. No actual cases of the disease had been seen 

 at any time in the Buffalo yards. 



It is true that reports arrived of many suspicious outbreaks of 

 disease in different parts of New York, and inspectors were sent 

 out to follow each case as reported, but for six days no trace of foot 

 and mouth disease could be found. 



COPPY AND GROBE DROVE. INFECTION OF ERIE AND NIAGARA 



COUNTIES 



The sanitary atmosphere remained in this hazy and unsatisfac- 

 tory condition until November 16, when Dr. Mark D. Williams 

 of Middleport telephoned me that a calf, bought of a peddler, had 

 died at the farm of August W. Laatsch, at Wolcottsville, Niagara 

 County, and that the remaining three cows on the premises were 

 seriously ill, showing blisters on mouth, feet and teats, and, further, 

 that August W. Herbst, who had bought this calf out of a drove 

 and kept it over night in his barn, had five cows sick. Upon reach- 

 ing Wolcottsville the following morning, I at once identified the 

 disease, in the two herds named, as aphthous fever, and with the 

 assistance of Dr. J. L. Wilder of Akron, traced it to eight more 

 herds in and around the latter village. 



