328 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



Extract from Special Report hy Dr. James Law, Department Agri- 

 culture, No. 22. 



Contagious Diseases of Domestic Animals. 



"A diseased animal is more likely to infect a healthy one at that i^eriod 

 when the fever runs highest, and the lung is being loaded with the mor- 

 bid exudation. Proof appears to be wanting as to the infecting nature 

 of the aflfection during the incubation stage, but it must not be inferred 

 that with the subsidence of the fever the danger is removed. It is a 

 matter of frequent observation that animals that have passed through 

 the fever and are again thriving well, and giving a free supply of milk, 

 and to ordinary observers appear in perfect health, retain the power of 

 transmitting the disease to others. This may continue for three, six, 

 nine, twelve, or according to some, even fifteen months after all signs of 

 acute illness have disappeared."* P. 147. 



Dr. Salmon wrote the Commissioners on this subject, February 

 6, 1884: 



" I should not consider it safe to raise the quarantine so long as the 

 cow which was sick at our last visit remains alive. The calf should 

 also remain under supervision for some months. As this is a herd of 

 Jersey cattle, the individuals of which are liable to be shipped to remote 

 points of the country as soon as the quarantine is removed, it is a mat- 

 ter of importance, not only to your State, but to the country at large, 

 that every precaution be taken to prevent the dissemination of the 

 disease." 



The Eeport of Dr. F. E. Rice is appended to this report. Drs. 

 Thayer and Salmon have already reported to the Department at 

 Washington. 



In closing this report your Committee would respectfully sug- 

 gest the advisability of taking into consideration the amending of 

 the present laws regarding contagious diseases of animals, so 

 they should be of more practical use and conform more to those 

 of adjoining states, Massachusetts for instance; at any rate, they 

 would strongly urge that the present law relating to that subject, 

 Chapter LXXIIl of the Public Acts, be so amended as to render 

 it efficient. As it now stands, the refusal of town assessors to 



♦"Australia was infected in 1850 by an imported Short-horn cow. 'This coiv had had 

 a slight attack (in England) some two years previously, of which she was declared at the 

 time to be perfectly cured.'— In 1873, one million four hundred and four thousand and 

 ninety-seven, or forty per cent, of the cattle of the island, perished, amounting, at thirty 

 dollars per head, to a total value of $43,500,000." Prof. R. S. Huidekoper, D. V. S., in 

 Eeport of Penn. Board of Agriculture, 1883, p. 185. 



