234 AGRieULTUEAL EEPORT. 



explain the fact that horses only have suffered, while all the animal crea- 

 tion beside have escaped. In other great epizootics man has often suf- 

 fered at the same time with the horse. If these resulted from atmos- 

 pheric changes alone, how comes it that man has escaped now ? The 

 explanation would be easy if the equine and the human malady -^rere 

 alike due to specific contagia, distinct from each other, but closely allied 

 in their manifest results and in the conditions which favor their devel- 

 opment or reproduction. Were the morbific element a simple gas, it 

 would be excessive in amount and easily appreciable at the point of 

 origin 5 it would continue to exert its influence at this point if its pro- 

 duction lasted ; it would expend its power there, and advance by suc- 

 cessive steps over newly conquered territory, each to be as promptly 

 relinquished in its turn; and unless uniformly diffused through the 

 atmosphere and in all parts of the globe, it would be speedily diluted and 

 rendered inert as it spread from its center of origin. The same remarks 

 would apply to putrefying organic matter in the atmosphere. This 

 would soon be changed by the action of oxygen into new compounds, 

 and lose its original properties. It would be easily appreciable in the 

 atmosphere, and would soon expire by its own limitation, and by the 

 completion of the putrefactive process. The only theory that will accord 

 with the history of the malady and its steady increase and extention is 

 that which recognizes the existence of a contagion, capable, like other 

 specific disease poisons, of assimilating its appropriate food, of reproduc- 

 ing its elements, andof thereby increasing the area of the disease. 



The present visitation has shown an unmistakable tendency to pro- 

 gress most rapidly along the great lines of commerce and travel. It 

 broke out near Toronto in the latter part of September ; was reported 

 in the city on October 1, and a fortnight later had reached Montreal and 

 Quebec. Before the 13th October it had reached Detroit, by the 14th 

 Buffalo, and by the 17th Eochester. By the 19th it existed in Lock- 

 port, Canandaigua, Geneva, Syracuse, and Albany, and a few days later 

 in Auburn and tJtiea ; by the 22d it had reached Boston and Revere, Mas- 

 sachusetts; Lewiston, Maine; and New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City; 

 on the 23d it had appeared in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut ; 

 Providence and Newport, Rhode Island ; Lunenburgh,Vermont ; and Ban- 

 gor, Portland, and Augusta, Maine. Yet it only reached Kingston, on 

 the opposite side of the Hudson from that occupied by the railway, on No- 

 vember 1, and Cooperstown, Otsego County, New York, well removed 

 from all railroad privileges, on November C, though apparently in the 

 direct line of the atmospheric wave, had such been the grand cause of 

 the disorder. It followed, in short, the course of the New York Central 

 and Hudson River Railroads and their various connecting lines, while 

 sparing the towns at some distance from the track. Passing south, we 

 find it in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington by October 28, 

 while the places already referred to in New York were still sound, 

 though for some time past surrounded on all sides by tlie disease. It 

 soon gained Goldsborough, North Carolina, and Columbia,South Carolina, 

 on November 3, three days before its advent at Cooperstown, New York, 

 ten days before its appearance at Scranton, eighteen days before it per- 

 vaded Blair County, Pennsylvania, and at the same dates when the mal- 

 ady was making its way down the Hoosic Valley, Massachusetts. 

 Taking the course of the Erie Railroad from Buffalo, we find the af- 

 fection prevailing in Wyoming and Steuben Counties, New York, on 

 October 21, Elmiraand Binghamton by October 28, and Warren County, 

 Pennsylvania, by October 20, while Ithaca, New York, only suffered on 



