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of healthy development. As soon as a cow shows signs of indisposi- 
tion, as by refusing food, drying up her milk, &c., she is immediately 
slaughtered, and her carcass is sold in the shambles. Many animals in 
the incipient and some in the advanced stages of pleuro-pneumonia are 
surreptitiously butchered and marketed, though this nefarious business 
is accompanied by greater risk from exposure than formerly. As in 
former years it is observed that dairies using distillery slops are far 
more liable to this infection than others. 
BLACK-FEVER OR BLACK-LEG.—A few deaths from “black-fever” 
among calves and yearlings occurred in Wayne, Pennsylvania. This is 
probably the same disease, with modifications, that is elsewhere called 
black-leg. The latter was very fatal in Highland, Virginia, where the 
first intimation of the disease was the death of the calf or yearling. A 
popular impression here is that bleeding would be an efficacious remedy 
for the disease if it could be discovered in time for treatment. For lack 
of sick animals to practice on, some farmers bleed all their calves every 
spring, a proceeding, to say the least, of very doubtful propriety. A 
few cases also occurred in Tazewell. It is also reported in Bosque, 
Texas; in Marion and Randolph, West Virginia; in Ogle, Illinois; in 
Renville, Dodge, Jackson, McLeod, and Taylor, Minnesota; in Hum- 
boldt, Clinton, Calhoun, Hancock, Harrison, Kossuth, and Emmett, 
Iowa; in Nodaway, Chariton, and Harrison, Missouri; in Jefferson, 
Lyon, Montgomery, Nemaha, Saline, Allen, Butler, and Washington, 
Kansas; and in Merrick, and Saunders, Nebraska. In most of these 
eases the disease was of limited range and showed no great virulence. 
LUNG-FEVER.—A valuable herd of Alderney cows in Prince George, 
Maryland, was entirely ruined by what our correspondent calls lung- 
fever. It results from the sudden exposure to cold of cattle that have 
become habituated to close, warm stables. In that county it affects 
more or less all cows brought from dairy-stables in and around Balti- 
more. The premonitory symptoms are first a peculiar cough observed 
in no other disease, then the appetite declines, and as the disease ad- 
vances, the cow stands by herself, head drooping, tongue protruding, 
saliva dropping from the mouth, bowels constipated, paying no atten- 
tion to anything around her. Most cases terminate fatally. As facts 
indicate a contagious character of this disease, it is doubtful whether 
it should be distinguished from pleuro-pneumonia, which it so much r 
sembles. Our correspondent having several sick cows, and not knew- 
ing what else to do, applied coal-oil to the skin over the lungs eve y 
day for a week. This cansed the hair entirely to drop off, but after a 
second applhcation the animals began to eat, and all but one recov ered. 
A few cases of lung-fever occurred in Middlesex, Virginia. 
DISTEMPER.—Onur correspondent in Halifax, Virginia, defines the dis- 
ease commonly known as distemper in that region asa high, inflammatory 
fever, of unusual prevalence in dry, hot summers, but of less than usual 
virulence during the cool, wet summer of 1875. It involves mainly the 
digestive apparatus, the liver, and the kidneys. It is found very diffi- 
cult to start a cathartic action of the bowels. Post-mortem examination 
invariably shows the contents of the manifolds to be dry and hard. The 
disease is more or less contagious. Animals surviving the first attack are 
liable to subsequent ones, but mostly ina milderform. The difficulty of 
cure has directed attention more to prophylactics. Our correspondent 
suggests the following as usually relied on in his neighborhood. A 
bushel of purest red clay, a gallon of salt, four ounces of saltpeter, and 
two ounces of sulphur are all mixed together with water to the consist- 
ence of stiff mortar. This mixture is kept in the cattle troughs all the 
