282 On a Contagious Disease in Cattle, 



to stand. When they fell, ihey would tremble and groan 

 violently. I saw several in this condition. Some dis- 

 charged bloody urine, others bled at the nose. The 

 bowels were generally very costive. Upon being opened, 

 the kidneys were found inflamed, and sometimes in a 

 state of suppuration, and the intestines filled with hard 

 balls. I prescribed strong purgatives. To one I gave 

 two ounces of calomel, in sweet oil, on the second day 

 of the disease, but without producing any evacuation. 

 Bleeding was tried, without success. The blood was in 

 a state of decomposition, and did not coagulate. As a 

 preventive I recommended smearing the nose, horns, 

 forehead, hoofs, and tail with tar, to counteract the con- 

 tagion ol the disease, by creating an artificial atmosphere 

 around the animal, and also the obvious expedient of an 

 entire separation of the old stock from the strangers. 

 None of the southern cattle died. The circumstance of 

 the cattle from a certain district in South Carolina infect- 

 ing others with the disease above alluded to, has long 

 been known, but the precise locality, or its extent, I have 

 not as yet been able to ascertain, notwithstanding my in- 

 quiries on the subject. The country of the long-leaved 

 pine has been said to be the native place of the infection, 

 but with what certainty I an unable to say. The cattle 

 alluded to, are said also to emit a peculiar smell, which 

 is easily perceived on a warm day, and to be well known 

 in South Carolina. 



The useful deduction of which the foregoing statement 

 admits, is a caution in respect to the mixing northern 

 and southern cattle, without the performance of a kind 

 of quarantine by a strange drove, l)efore they are per- 

 mitted to associate v\ ith the stock already on the farm. 

 It may serve to enlarge our ideas on the subject to men- 

 tion the fact, of disease having frequently taken place, 

 upon the mixture of heahhy sailors or soldiers from dif- 



