THE SPLENIC FEVER. 123 



3. That their systems are charged with poisonous principles which accumulate in the 

 bodies of acclimatized animals that enjoy an immunity. 



4. That southern cattle may be driven so as to improve in condition; and yet for 

 some weeks, and probably not less than three months, continue to excrete the deleterious 

 principles which poison the cattle of the States through which the herds are driven on their 

 way north or west. 



5. That all breeds of cattle in States north of those on the Gulf coast, without 

 regard to age or sex, if they feed on grass contaminated by southern droves, are attacked 

 by the splenic fever; that the disease may be, but is very rarely, propagated through the 

 feeding of hay. 



6. That the disease occurs mainly during the hot months of summer and autumn, and 

 never after the wild grasses have been killed by frosts, until the mild weather in spring 

 returns ; that then the grasses are healthy, and continue healthy, unless fresh droves of 

 Texan or of Florida cattle are driven over the land. 



7. That heat and drought aggravate the disease in individual animals. 



8. That there is not the slightest foundation for the view that the ticks disseminate 

 the disease. 



9. That the splenic fever does not belong to that vast and deadly group of purely 

 contagious and infectious diseases of which the rinderpest, the lung plague, and eruptive 

 fevers are typical. 



10. That it is an enzootic, due to local influences, capable of only a limited spread, 

 and analogous to or identical with the &quot;black water&quot; of various parts of Europe. 



11. That, however warm the weather may be, cattle affected with splenic fever 

 have not developed in their systems any poison like the anthrax poison; and that the 

 flesh, blood, and other tissues of animals are incapable of inducing any disease in man or 

 animals. 



12. That splenic fever is not malignant typhus or typhoid fever. That it has no 

 analogue among human diseases, but is, however, developed under conditions which prevail 

 where the so-called malaria injuriously affects the human health. 



CURATIVE TREATMENT. 



The great majority of epizootic and enzootic diseases never can, and never will, be 

 arrested by the medical treatment of the sick. Even the benignant epizootic aphthae, 

 which is rarely fatal, spreads rapidly through a country; and, in the long run, owing to 

 the certainty and rapidity of its transmission, entails more loss than some of the most fatal 

 diseases. Splenic fever may be classed among the incurable maladies, inasmuch as we know 

 of no antidote to the mysterious poison inducing it; and, while we can alleviate some of 

 the sufferings of the affected cattle, a very trifling measure of success attends the most 

 assiduous nursing and medication. Bleeding has been, in some parts, a favorite remedy; 

 and I have known one animal recover either in consequence or in spite of the remedy. 

 Purgatives have been freely and fairly tried, with good result in very few instances, and 

 with depressing and killing influences in many more. 



The &quot;red water&quot; of cows in Scotland is often cured by opiates, which check the dis 

 charge of blood; and with alcoholic stimulants in moderation, with the free use of mucil 

 aginous drinks. I have tried the same treatment in splenic fever, with little or no success. 



