THE LUNG PLAGUE. 11 



more free than the south, but in 1844 cattle were imported into the county of Tyrone from 

 Glasgow, communicating the disease, which continued till 1852. Londonderry suffered 

 about 1849 50, and here and there in all other counties, not excluding Kerry, the intro 

 duction of the malady by traveling or purchased cattle has occurred. 



While the lung disease was thus lighting up in different parts of Ireland, it was 

 committing great ravages in England. All the large towns containing dairy cows suffered. 

 Speedily did the disease pass from London to Manchester, and Birmingham to Liverpool, 

 Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle. It was in the month of November, 1843, that English 

 cattle carried the disease into Scotland at All-Hallow Fair, in Edinburgh. It speedily 

 passed to Glasgow, Perth, and Aberdeen. In 1844 it reached Inverness, on cattle taken 

 there by sea. Thus the large towns and their vicinities were first affected, but no great 

 interval elapsed before farms were contaminated. The counties of Norfolk, Lincolnshire, 

 Derbyshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Northumberland were all affected by 1844 and 

 1845. It was later that the disease entered the breeding districts of Gloucestershire, 

 Herefordshire, and Devon. Cheshire lost early and much. In Scotland it was 1846 or 

 1847 before many districts in such counties as Lanarkshire and Ayrshire had the disease. 

 It committed great ravages in Wigtown, Renfrew, Fife, Perth, Kincardine, and Aberdeen 

 shires. It has been rarely, and on a few farms, in such counties as Argyle, Banff, Inver 

 ness, and Caithness. 



The losses by pleuropneumonia have amounted during the past seven-and-twenty 

 years to as high as two million pounds sterling per annum in the United Kingdom of 

 Great Britain and Ireland. The best cattle have been destroyed, inasmuch as the breed 

 ing cows and young stocks in breeding districts beyond the range of infection never attain 

 the value of the fine milch cows and fattened steers which exist in milk-producing and 

 fattening districts. I prepared a table of losses in 88 dairies in the city of Edinburgh, 

 from the 1st of July, 1861, to the 1st of July, 1862, and out of 1,839 cows, 791 were 

 sold diseased to butchers, and 284 were sold as food for pigs. The total value of the 

 1,075 diseased animals when first bought, at the very moderate average of 13 10s. each, 

 is 14,512 10s. There was realized by their sale, calculating the value of the 791 sold 

 to butchers at an average of 5 each, and the 284 sold for pig-feeding at 10 shillings each, 

 the sum of 4,097. The net annual loss by diseased cows in Edinburgh alone was, there 

 fore, 10,415 10s. Similar losses have occurred in all other large cities, such as Dublin, 

 London, Liverpool, Newcastle, &c. 



From England and Holland the disease has been propagated far and wide. In 1847 

 English cattle communicated pleuropneumonia to Sweden, and in 1848, it appears, from 

 Sweden to Denmark. Mr. R. Fenger, a Danish veterinarian, furnished me, in 1862, with 

 the following information: &quot;As to the appearance of this disease in the Kingdom of Den 

 mark, it is an established i act that it has taken place only three times upon three different 

 farms where cattle had been introduced from abroad. No other cattle were affected than 

 those in the three herds alluded to, and for three years no disease has appeared in Den 

 mark. As to the spontaneous origin of pleuropneumonia, I wish to draw your attention 

 to the fact that it is never seen in the town of Copenhagen, notwithstanding that in this 

 place there are large dairies where the cows are fed on draff from distilleries, and are kept 

 in a state contrary to any which sanitary rules might suggest. In the dukedom of Schles- 

 wig the disease has been imported several times, and last from England, and occasionally 



