IS THE DISEASE COXTAGIOUS? 163 



good horse, aucl when he has been taken sick, he has been 

 pampered, blanketed, fed with mash, with apples, with ginger 

 and molasses, and everything else almost. So far as regards 

 the general treatment, it has been abominable, as I remarked 

 before. Let your horse alone, unless he is sick ; if he is ab- 

 solutely diseased, take care of him, and not until then. ^Ve 

 hear of a thousand horses being attacked in one day in the 

 city. That is not capable of being explained on the theory 

 of contagion. 



Dr. Stuetevant. I believe this disease is contagious, and 

 the seeming fact which leads me to believe it is that it breaks 

 out just in those places where you would expect it to break 

 out, if it were contagious. The livery stables, and those 

 l^laces which have daily communication with market towns 

 seem to get it first. All those places which have frequent 

 communication with Boston are found to have been visited by 

 the disease, and there are other facts which I might mention, 

 which lead me to believe that it is contagious. In reo-ard to 

 the treatment, we hear a great many conflicting views. Some 

 believe in exercising the horses, and others believe in keeping 

 them shut up in the stable and pampering them. I can give 

 an instance from very good authority. The superintendent 

 of the largest express company in New York city had a very 

 A'aluable private stud of horses at the time the distemper 

 broke out in New York. He gave orders that the horses of 

 the express company must be used as long as they could be 

 reasonably used ; in other words, as long as they could be 

 kept out of the hands of ]VIr. Bergh. In regard to his own 

 horses, he gave orders that they should have the best of care, 

 — and I have no doubt that they did have all the care and all 

 the pampering that wealth could furnish them, — and his own 

 horses sufiered very much more severely than the horses of 

 the company. 



Dr. Fay. I should like to ask the gentleman who has just 

 taken his seat, what he means by contagion and contagious 

 disease. 



Dr. Sturtevaxt. I mean by contagious disease, a dis- 

 ease which is carried by contact with some virus, which can be 

 recognized in this case, to the animal which receives it. For 

 instance, if this matter which passes from the nose of a dis- 



