THE LUNG PLAGUE. 27 



CHILLS BREATHING A COLD AIR. 



East winds in Scotland were blamed by Professor Dick as the active agency inducing 

 bovine pleuropneumonia. He overlooked the fact that the east winds prevailed before 

 1843, when the lung plague had not yet penetrated Scotland. I have seen on the coast of 

 Fife a herd of cattle of all ages seized with bronchitis a curable, benignant, and acute 

 inflammation, presenting none of the characteristics of the lung plague ; and there is no doubt 

 that the deficient shelter, intense cold, and rapid changes of the weather may induce 

 sporadic and non-contagious inflammations of the respiratory organs. But this is not pleuro 

 pneumonia. 



It is not at all uncommon in Great Britain, Holland, and elsewhere, for farmers to 

 ascribe the disease to chills ; and its prevalence among drift cattle has been referred to 

 transportation for long distances in open railway cars, on steamboats, and exposure in 

 markets. But who ever heard of western cattle being struck with the lung plague in 

 passing from Illinois to New York? Spanish cattle, reared in a country free from pleuro 

 pneumonia, suffer all the hardships of rough weather at sea, but are landed invariably 

 sound in their lungs in Liverpool or London. Danish cattle cross the German Ocean and 

 suffer much ill-treatment, but their dissection reveals at no time the lesions of the lung 

 plague. 



Not so with Dutch or Irish cattle. They make a short sea voyage from an infected 

 country, and propagate pleuropneumonia wherever they come in contact with susceptible 

 cattle. 



Innumerable observations undoubtedly show that the lung plague prevails as much, 

 and often more, during hot weather than in the winter months; it spares many cold 

 countries into which it has no opportunity of transportation, and visits the most genial 

 climate whither sick cattle have been taken. Italy and Australia furnish as good fields 

 for its development as the Swiss Alps, and the colder portions of the United States. 



OVERWOEK. 



In France and Italy it has been asserted that keeping oxen long in the yoke, exhaust 

 ing them, starving, and often drenching them with rain, induce the lung disease. I know 

 not what diseases such practices have not been said to cause. If we survey the countries 

 where pleuropneumonia has been longest known, and where its ravages have been most 

 intense, we shall find that, as a rule, it prevails among milk cattle that never work, steers 

 that are grazed or stall-fed, and never broken to the plow or wagon, and herds of breeding 

 stock, as in the Australian runs, never accustomed to restraint or punishment. 



HEREDITARY PREDISPOSITION CONGENITAL PLEUROPNEUMONIA. 



It is necessary to establish clearly the difference between hereditary taint and con 

 genital disease. A malady is termed hereditary when it is transmitted from parent to 

 offspring by virtue of a constitutional defect, deformity, or taint. It may, but usually 

 does not, appear at birth. The best example is furnished by cancer, which occurs fre 

 quently in the human subject, and recurs for generations. None of the specific or conta 

 gious fevers are hereditary, and although the question has been discussed in relation to 



