130 THE DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



Definition or Nature of the Disease. 



Gamgee says, " It is a disease peculiar to the bovine species, 

 which has never been described as attacking Southern cattle, and 

 which occurs in a more or less latent form among them." 



I admit my inability to comprehend the above language. Even 

 though a disease appears among a certain species of animals in a 

 " latent " form, it still attacks them, and we know that it does attack 

 •the cattle of Texas, or it would not have received its name of Texas 

 fever. 



Texas fever should be described as a peculiar infectious disease 

 of cattle, due to some unknown inficieus, undoubtedly of a bacterial 

 nature, which for its primary generation is dependent upon special 

 localities, climatic and telluric conditions. 



With reference to its " latent " or mild character among the 

 cattle native to the localities where it originates, it exactly cor- 

 responds to the rinderpest of Europe, which appears in just such 

 a form among the cattle which graze upon the places where it is 

 said to originate, viz., the vast steppes of Russia. It also bears 

 some resemblance to this disease in its clinical phenomena, as well 

 as pathological, but differs from it in not being strictly contagious, 

 that is, passing from animal to animal. 



I have been unable to find anything in this report regarding the 

 influence of the infected localities upon new stock imported from 

 other places to them. 



It is like anthrax or black-quarter in that it is confined to locality, 

 and some pathological phenomena, viz., the enlarged spleen. 



Gamgee says further : " It is, so far as we have ascertained, in- 

 capable of communication by simple contact of sick with healthy 

 animals ; and, in the strictest sense of the terms, is neither contagious 

 nor infectious." 



That it is not contagious, there seems to be unquestionable evi- 

 dence, for we read that when Texan cattle are put in a pasture, and 

 merely separated by a fence from other cattle native to these places, 

 that the latter do not acquire the disease. But that it is not an in- 

 fectious disease is quite another question. 



That it is not an infectious disease as a contagious disease is, we 

 freely admit ; but that it is an infectious disease of a very malig- 

 nant type we positively assert. 



In this regard it is very interesting to note that it exactly cor- 

 responds with an infectious disease of man, which is bound on 

 nearly the same localities — viz., yellow fever. 



