322 REPOET OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



importation, the facts would not warrant us in stopping the trade. Only 

 it must be carefully guarded against abuse, as frozen hides, or those 

 ihat have been stripped from the victims on board ship and hurriedly 

 salted to qualify for admission, may introduce the disease, and the accli- 

 matization of such a poison in the continent is far more to be dreaded 

 than any temporary loss, however great. Fresh and frozen hides must 

 be rigidly excluded. * 



The distinction 'made by Mr. Thompson between the hides of calves 

 and grown cattle cannot be supported, as rinderpest, like other conta- 

 gious diseases, proves congenital; but calves' hides, like others, may be 

 admitted when thoroughly dried or salted. 



It must not be inferred that the contagion of rinderpest is always 

 destroyed by drying. On the contrary', it has often been conveyed long 

 distances in dried fibrous material — notably in hay and straw — in which 

 case the exclusion of the air is probably the cause of its preservation. 

 An importation of the malady into the north of Scotland, in the middle 

 of the last century, was made through the medium of Dutch haj-. 



Hou. D. Christie is in error in saying that^r/r/s are susceptible of this 

 disease. In one instance only, at the Jardin des Plantes, was an animal 

 at all related to the pig (the peccary ) affected ; while, on the other hand, 

 in all the countries of Europe pigs have mingled continually with the 

 diseased cattle during each epizootic of rinderpest without a single case 

 of infection of the species. 



While the restriction placed upon cattle should be extended to all 

 ruminants, horses and pigs ought to be admitted without quarantine, but 

 with the simple precaution of sponging the one with a weak solution of 

 chloride of lime or carbolic acid. Any fodder or litter accompanying 

 them from infected countries should be burned, and all clothing packed 

 in trunks or boxes should be fumigated with sulphur smoke or heated 

 to a temperature of 140^ ;Pahr. 



I feel called upon to add that, in my opinion, the clause providing for 

 the admission of blooded stock on a consular certificate must render the 

 whole order a dead-letter. What but blooded stock is imported into the 

 United States from Europe? And how is a consular certificate to pro- 

 tect us against a disease that may be contracted on the infected quays 

 at the time of shipping? We have already imported apthous fever, in 

 1870, exactly in this way: Two tine short-horn cows, taken from a sound 

 herd and in every way worthy a certificate of health when they started, 

 contracted the seeds of the disease at the shippiug-port of Liverpool, 

 passed through it on the Atlantic, were landed at Quebec, and conveyed 

 tbe infection to the herd of their owner, whence it spread throughout 

 Canada.and over the Northern States. Now, this affection has a shorter 

 period of latency tban rinderpest, and was, therefore, less likely to 

 escape detection. Having, then, already imjxjrted apthous fever with 

 blooded stock taken from healthy herds in England, what guarantee have 

 we that we shall be saved from a similar introduction of rinderpest ? 



To sum up, I would advise the following : 



1. That all ruminating animals, of whatever breed, be subjected to ex- 

 amination by an expert, to a quarantine of four days, and to a disin- 

 fection of their surfaces with a weak solution of chloride of lime or car- 

 bolic acid, 



2. That horses and swine be admitted, without quarantine, after their 

 skins have been disinfected as above ; and 



3. That all thoroughly-dried hides, and such as have been salted in 

 Europe before shiping, be admitted without any reetriction. 



