REPORT OF PROFESSOR GAMGEE ON THE LUNG PLAGUE. 



SIR : The lung plague of cattle, developed alone as the result of contagion, recedes and 

 is extinguished wherever the people are fully informed of its origin and nature, and meas 

 ures based on such knowledge are adopted and enforced. Americans can learn this from 

 Massachusetts. It is, however, the most insidious and the most deceptive of all malignant 

 bovine disorders. It penetrates and travels far and wide, where unsuspecting farmers and 

 dairymen are far from skilled in the veterinary art. It kills, and yet there are survivors 

 which resist all further attacks, and in the course of time they tend to form a small but 

 useful nucleus of insusceptible stock, which enables the people to go on, though in pov 

 erty, and hope for better luck. Every one strives, but in secret, lest the publication of 

 facts should prevent the sale and transfer of unhealthy or infected stock. Long Island, 

 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia, furnish wide 

 fields in which to determine the truth of these statements. 



In perusing the history of contagious pleuropneumonia, it will be found that the 

 experiences of the New World are but repetitions of those recorded by Europeans. 



In advising as to the most certain means whereby so destructive a malady may be 

 eradicated from this country, I have been actuated by the belief that the diffusion of knowl 

 edge, in a form that will carry conviction home to every intelligent American, is the most 

 certain means whereby to deal a death blow to the lung plague. There are many prudent 

 and earnest leaders of the agricultural body in every State, who can work, and will work, 

 if armed with reliable information ; and it is my belief in this that has induced me to 

 spare n o labor in rendering this as complete and satisfactory a record as possible of all the 

 knowledge on the subject that is at present at our disposal. Farmers must not be alarmed 

 at the scientific garb which must necessarily invest such a work. If they follow me 

 through, without a dictionary, they will not be left in doubt as to my meaning, and I hope 

 not a few will rise, after a perusal of what follows, even though they may inhabit the far 

 distant prairies and the mountains of California, and exclaim that it is the duty of every 

 American, and especially of every American farmer, to manifest his interest in the extinc 

 tion of a malady that may for centuries, if left unheeded now, harass the stock-raisers of 

 the entire continent, and bring poverty and ruin to many thousands of families. 



The report has been presented, for convenience of reference, under the following 

 heads : 



I. Names by which the lung plague isor has been known in different parts of the 

 world. 



II. History of the lung plague from the remotest to the present time. 



III. Signs or symptoms by which the disease is recognized during life. 



IV. Signs or appearances by which it is recognized after death. 



