VETERINARY PROBLEMS. 33 



when it is driven to pastures which have not been infected, 

 succeeds in some way in infecting the pastures there ; but I 

 do not know of a single case which is free from doubt, where 

 an animal which has not come from the permanently infected 

 district of the South has ever carried the infection to any 

 other pastures. 



Mr. . Can this infection be carried by the voidings 



of the animal? 



Dr. Salmon. I think so, but I have no facts bearing upon 

 that point. 



Mr. . I asked the question because it has been the 



custom, in the western part of this State, to purchase at Al- 

 bany the manure collected at the stock yards, and it is dealt 

 in very largely in that district. 



Dr. Saoion. I should suppose people having cattle there 

 Avould know something about that. 



Mr. Myrick. I would like to ask the doctor his opinion 

 upon a trouble which causes a loss every year to many farm- 

 ers in New England, and that is, abortion in cows. 



Dr. Salmon. I have not very many facts bearing upon 

 that point. When I was in the South, two years ago, there 

 was a herd which became infected with this trouble by an 

 animal which was brouo;ht from another herd where the 

 trouble had been known to exist for considerable time. I had 

 always looked upon the disease as infectious or contagious. 

 The man who owned the herd, which consisted of valu- 

 able Jerseys, asked me to assume the management of the 

 case, and as he promised to carry out. my directions implicit- 

 ly, I did so. I disinfected the stables thoroughly almost 

 every day with a solution of sulphuric acid, and we had but 

 two cases afterthat disinfection, and those within a very 

 short time, showing that the infection had commenced before 

 the disinfection had been made, and that was the end of the 

 trouble. " One swallow does not make a summer," but it 

 is so seldom, where that disease enters a large herd, and par- 

 ticularly a herd of fine-bred animals like the Jerseys, that 

 you get rid of it the first year, that I am inclined to think 

 that our disinfection did have very considerable influence 

 upon it. The man who owned the herd did not expect to 

 get rid of it for at least three years, but we did get rid of it 



