164 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



eased horse is conveyed, either by the clothes of an individual, 

 or by contact with the horse, or is deposited upon the hitch- 

 ihg-post, and thus comes in contact with another horse, and 

 that horse receives the disease, I should call that evidence of 

 contagion. 



Dr. Fay. If that be true, I should like to inquire if this 

 disease is a contagious disease and communicated as a conta- 

 gious disease of the character which the gentleman states, 

 how he accounts for the fact that the horse which was at the 

 bottom of the central shaft of the Hoosac Tunnel should have 

 contracted the disease, or the horse that was kept in the upper 

 story of a building in Boston for seven years should have 

 taken the disease. I would like to inquire whether it is con- 

 tagious by coming in contact with the animal itself, or coming 

 in contact with a place which is infested by the distemper. 



Dr. Sturtevant. I do not know anything about it, abso- 

 lutely, but it is very easy to ])elieve that the man who had 

 charge of this horse in the attic in High Street, may have 

 come in contact with other horses and carried the contaoion 

 to him ; and the same explanation may be made in regard to 

 the care of the horse in the Hoosac Tunnel. I have no means 

 of knowing how he was exposed ; whether the man connected 

 with him came in contact with a horse that had the disease, or 

 not. It depends upon the transmission of a certain matter 

 from one diseased horse to another ; whether it is conveyed in 

 one way or another, b}^ the intervention of a hitching-post, by 

 the clothing of the hostler, or by germs carried through the 

 air, seems to me immaterial. I think very likely it is par- 

 tially epidemic, but that it is contagious seems to me very 

 clear, from the fact that it seemed to follow the lines of com- 

 munication first ; and then we had cases which appeared to be 

 epidemic : but they were not sufficiently excluded from other 

 cases to establish a scientific law. 



I will state another fact. Our farm is so situated that 

 when the epidemic broke out in our neighborhood, we could 

 very easily keep our horses, some nine or ten, from contact 

 with other horses, and our men, having steady habits, not go- 

 ing off the place much, were not very likely to come in con- 

 tact with diseased horses. We had the disease about us on 

 every side, but we escaped until the fire broke out in Boston, 



