636 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



inert, it had almost lost its virulence and power of producing this dis- 

 ease; therefore, the first herds were so mildly affected that it was mis- 

 leading. After it spread to a few herds it soon regained its virulence, 

 and was producing a type of the disease the most pronounced ever seen 

 by our men in the field. There was a pure-bred Red Polled herd — a nice, 

 well-kept herd — in Indiana, that even had the large blisters on the muzzle 

 up between the nostrils, where they say it is very rarely seen; and 

 Doctor Eichorn drew from one blister over three drams of the deadly 

 fluid that produces the disease. 



Now, in these four counties, they didn't have as much live stock in a 

 county as we have in a township in Iowa. Iowa has no equal in all lines 

 of agriculture, and especially in live stock lines; so that, while Iowa is at 

 the forefront in all these matters, these outbreaks of the disease that 

 strike Iowa are more serious than when they strike any other terri- 

 tory. There was little stock business between these four counties and 

 Chicago. In looking for shipments, they found only one shipment of 

 hogs from Indiana to Chicago, and the man who shipped them, after he 

 had learned more about foot and mouth disease in the community, said 

 he believed some of the hogs that he shipped to Chicago had foot and 

 mouth disease. So that is how we believe it reached Chicago. 



There was a time (I can't give you the exact date) when the authorities 

 of the government were pleading with the interests in Chicago and the 

 authorities of Illinois to close the Chicago stockyards and clean and dis- 

 infect them, before they were sure that it was there, and before they were 

 sure that the stockyards business was going to spread it in other states. 

 The government was hotly opposed in this proposition, and it went on 

 for some time, until finally they quarantined the state of Illinois, and 

 the stockyards company then had to clean up and disinfect. If they had 

 quarantined Chicago when the government requested them to do it, so far 

 as we have traced the dates now on our outbreak, we would have had no 

 foot and mouth disease in Iowa. I can't give you the number of states — 

 infected — it was about twenty — that received this infection from the 

 Chicago yards. We received twenty-four shipments during the critical 

 time. Before we knew that we had been in danger, positively, I went 

 through my files in the ofRce and gathered out every certificate indicating 

 the shipment of cattle from the Cliicago yards into the state of Iowa, and 

 sent my men out to place them in quarantine, for foot and mouth dis- 

 ease. We had this work practically covered the first time before the 

 government told us that we had received infection, doubtless, from Chi- 

 cago. At that time the outbreak was bad in other parts of the country, 

 and the government was very short of men, and we had been handi- 

 capped in accomplishing things as fast as we would have liked to, 

 although I am glad to say to you that I think we have it under control 

 in Iowa. We have had the disease show up in only six counties; those 

 are Iowa, Johnson, Jones, Jackson, Clinton, and Cedar. 



As you know, on November 6th, the state of Iowa was first placed in 

 strict quarantine by the United States authorities. Later, effective on the 

 30th of November, we had seventy-eight counties released only as to an 



