468 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
It would therefore appear better to concentrate the expense incident to 
the extermination of foot-and mouth disease by purchasing and slaughter- 
ing all affected and exposed cattle after judicious appraisem.ent. The 
carcasses of these animals should be totally destroyed, preferably by cre- 
mation, or otherwise by burying them in a hole six feet deep and covering 
them with air-slaked lime. The infected stable should be disinfected by 
thoroughly cleaning it, scrubbing the floor with hot water, brushing down 
all loose dust from the walls, and tearing off all woodwork which is partly 
decayed. Then the whole interior of the stable should be covered with a 
good coat of limewash containing one part of 40 per cent solution of 
formaldehyde (which is sold by the drug trade under the commercial 
name of formalin) to 30 parts of the limewsh, or four ounces of formalin 
to each gallon of limewash. Another efficient wash for this purpose may 
be prepared by adding six ounces of chloride of lime to each gallon of 
limewash. All stable utensils should be thoroughly cleaned and disin- 
fected by the application of a solution containing four ounces of formalin 
to a gallon of water, or six ounces of crude cabolic acid to each gallon 
of v^-ater. The manure should be burned or spread over ground (other 
than meadow land) that is to be turned under. No other cattle should 
be purchased for at least thirty days after the complete disinfection of 
the premises. 
The method of eradicating the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 
New England in 1902-3 consisted in the rigid quarantine of all infected 
premises and of the animals upon them, in slaughtering the diseased and 
exposed animals at the earliest practicable moment, and in thoroughly 
disinfecting the stables and the contents of the buildings in which they 
had been sheltered. The progress of this work, the confinement of the 
disease to four of the New England states, and its complete eradication 
in a comparatively short time demonstrate in a striking manner the 
efficacy of slaughtering and the futility of relying upon quarantine alone 
in stamping out the disease. 
Inoculation has been adopted in some countries in order to have the 
disease spread quickly through the herds, and while this practice has 
undoubted value where the disease is indigenous, it is not desirable in 
this country and should not be adopted. 
Medicinal Treatment. — In some mild attacks of foot-and-mouth dis- 
ease great benefit may be derived from a judicious attempt to relieve the 
symptoms and thus assist nature in overcoming the disease, but the great 
clanger attached to the presence of an infectious disease in any nonin- 
fected locality for twelve to twenty days, while the disease is running 
its course, must appeal to the sanitarian and prevent indiscriminate 
medicinal treatment. 
However, benficial results have been obtained by the local application 
of disinfecting and astringent lotions. A teaspoonful of alumn, chlorate 
of potash, boracic acid, or one-half teaspoonful of the tincture of aloes 
and myrrh placed in the mouth has proved efficacious. The infected 
animals may be made to stand from five to ten minutes in a shallow 
trough containing medicinal agents such as a l-to-1,000 solution of bi- 
chloride of mercury or a 3 per cent carbolic acid or creolin solution. Where 
