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prompt appointment of a medical commission during the recent outbreak, the - 
report of which is now almost ready for publication; but it cannot give its counten- 
ance to spasmodic and unreasoning excitement which may do as much injury as the 
disease itself. While writers for our press, and in some cases agricultural editors, 
have so misunderstood some of the most palpable facts of the malady, it is not 
strange that foreign governments should promulgate and act upon similar mis- 
apprehensions. The following, relative to restrictions upen the importation into 
Great Britain of American hay, is from the London Agricultural Gazette : 
Then there is the extraordinary story respecting the communication of the American 
malady by the Texas cattle, who are not themselves affected by it. Such peculiarities are 
wonderfully interesting to scientific pathologists, but breeders and feeders of stock will be 
more comforted by the assurance that prevautions have been taken to prevent their herds 
from becoming acquainted with such morbid oddities. Rumor, in short, gives a bad charac- 
ter to Texas or Spanish cattle-fever, and it is not upon us that the onus lies of clearing its 
reputation from unjust aspersions ; wespeak with the full conviction that every stock-owner in 
the country will accept our sentiments as his own when we say that good reason existed for 
the order which was passed on Tuesday last, restricting the use of American hay to animals 
that are not likely to be harmed by it. As Liverpool is a great mart for hay for horses, no 
great hardship is inflicted upon the hay trade, and a possible source of danger to our cattle 
is removed. Something was required to be done beyond merely waiting to see what might 
happen. The veterinary department of the privy council was bound, as we heard it expressed, 
to allay the alarm by an assurance that it was groundless, or tacitly to admit the danger, 
and advise the adoption of proper means to avert it. In choosing the latter alternative the 
executive has, we believe, acted wisely. 
In view of the probability that there is not a ton of hay for sale in the United 
States that could infect a single animal, and to the further apparent certainty 
that such ease, if it should exist, could not communicate the disease to a second 
animal, the absurdity of this restriction, and the fear whith caused it, is strik- 
ingly manifest. 
The Mark Lane Express of October 5 has a quotation from remarks of Lord 
Montague, at an agricultural meeting, which is full of the most extravagant 
misapprehensions. One of many is thus expressed : 
The disease which has been ravaging that great continent Curing the present summer was 
similar in all essential points to the cattle plague which ravaged this country in 1866. Its 
highly contagious nature, the great rapidity of its spread, its fatal character, and the speedi- 
ness of death in almost every instance, will be recognized at once as facts of our own experi- 
ence. The cattle plague is indigenous in Texas, just’as the rinderpest has its home in the 
steppes of Russia. 
This disease is not at all like rinderpest; it is not contagious ; it does not 
spread at all, the virus being limited to one “generation,” instead of passing 
through animal after animal without diminution of infecting power; and the 
active form of the disease, instead of being “ indigenous in Texas,” is not known 
there, though Texas animals appear to communicate it. 
The report of Professor John Gamgee, of the Albert Veterinary College, 
England, who spent several weeks in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, 
in careful investigation among diseased native animals aud Texas herds, and in 
post-mortem examinations of both kinds of stock, is nearly ready for publication. 
Answers to specific inquiries relative to this season’s outbreak are coming for- 
ward to add to the mass of facts illustrative of the subject. Chromo-lithographs 
of the spleen and other organs will illustrate the report if an appropriation is 
made by Congress for that purpose, All this matter will be presented to Con- 
gress at the approaching session for publication in such form as that body may 
authorize. 
