438 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



fessor Gamgee of the extensire prevalence of the disease in Maryland, infection having 

 been introduced by cattle from the Philadeljjhia market. The professor personally 

 traced the disease in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, District of Colnmbia, and 

 Virginia, and makes the following assertions : 



"That the lung plague in cattle exists on Long Island, -where it has prevailed for 

 many years ; that it is not uncommon in New Jersey ; has at various times existed in 

 New York State; contiftnes to be very pi-evalent in several counties of Pennsj'^lvania, 

 especially in Delaware and Bucks; has injured the farmers of Maryland, the dairy- 

 men around Washington, D. C, and has penetrated into Virginia." 



He adds a table compiled by Mr. G. Reid, Ingleside farm, Washington, D. C, show- 

 ing that in an avera,ge of 471 cows, kept in Washington and vicinity, 198 had died of 

 lung plague since its introduction ; 39 head perished in ld6S and 16 in 1869, up to date 

 of report. 



More recently illustrations of the existence of the disease in these States have been 

 frequent, and among comparatively recent cases the author has been consulted con- 

 cerning a high class Jersey herd near Burlington, N. J., in 1877, and a herd of im- 

 ported Ayrshires in Staten Island later in the same year. 



In 1878, the town of Clinton, N. J., was invaded, the infection coming through a cow 

 that had strayed for some days in New York City. This was alleged to be an Ohio 

 cow, but had strayed long enough in New York to have contracted the affection. 



After slioTving tliat tlie disease is a purely contagions malady, and 

 cannot arise spontaneously^ Dr. Law gives the following brief history of 

 tlie introduction, progress, and continual presence of the affection since 

 its introduction among the cattle in and near the city of New York. 



From different old residents (including Wm. Geddes, of Brooklyn, and 

 Hugh T. Meakim, of Flushing) who were in the milk business in Brook- 

 lyn at the time of the imi^ortation, the following facts have been obtained: 



The first cow was introduced from England, on the ship Washington, in 1843, and waa 

 purchased by Peter Dunn, a milkman, who kept his cows in a stable near South Ferry. 

 This cow soon sickened and died, and infected the rest of his cows. From this the 

 disease was speedily conveyed into the great distillery stables of John D. Minton, at the 

 foot of Fourth street, and into the Skillman-street stables, Brooklyn, through which 

 my informant, Fletcher, showed the Massachusetts commission iu 1862. In this long 

 period of nineteen years, the plague had prevailed uninterruptedly in the Skillman- 

 street stables, and "the commissioner reported that they " found some sick with the 

 acute disease," and having killed and examined one in the last stages of the affec- 

 tion, stated that it shovred a typical case of the same malady which existed in Massa- 

 ^chusetts. 



As dealers found it profitable to purchase cheap cows out of infected herds, and 

 retail them at a round price, the malady was soon spread over Brooklyn and New York 

 City. One or two cases will enable ua to trace one unbroken chain of infection down 

 to the present time. 



In 1849, William Meakim, of Bushwick, Long Island (New York), kept a large dairy, 

 and employed a man with a yoke of oxen in drawing grain from the New York and 

 Brooklyn distilleries. A milkman on the way, who had lung fever iu his herd, per- 

 suaded the man to use his oxen in di'awing a dead cow out of his stable. Soon after 

 the oxen sickened and died ; and the disease extending to his dairy cowe, Mr. Meakim 

 lost forty head in the short space of three months. The stables having thus become 

 infected, Mr. Meakim continued to lose from six to ten cows yearly for tlie succeeding 

 twenty years, or as long as he kept in the milk business. This, which is but one in- 

 stance out of a hundred, covers fifteen years of the plague in the Skillman stables, 

 and brings the record down to 1SG9. It will be observed that this was the first occur- 

 rence of any such sickness in Mr. Mealdm's herd; it commenced, not among the 

 cows cooped up in hot buildings and heavily fed on swill, but in the oxen that were 

 almost constantly in the open air, but which had been brought in contact with a dead 

 and infected cow ; the infection of the cows followed, and for twenty long years no 

 fresh cow could be brought into these stables with impunity. 



Dr. Bothgate, Fordham avenue and Seventeenth street, New York, informed us that 

 twenty years ago (1859) his father kept a herd of Jerseys, which contracted the dis- 

 ease by exposure to sick animals, and that all elTorts to get rid of it failed, until when, 

 several years later, the bams were burned dov.n. The devouring element secured what 

 the skill of the owner had failed to accomplish — a thorough disinfection. 



For some time so prevalent was the disease that Dr. Bothgate did not dare to turn 

 his cattle out in the fields, lest they should be infected by contact with cattle over the 

 leuoe. Since the period of the infection of his own herd, he knows that the pestilence 



