STATISTICAL AND HISTORICAL REPORT OF SPLENIC FEVER. 177 



of these forty-six head were purchased by Messrs. Weed & Holstein, who then rented the 

 meadows on State Island, (where I then resided as lazaretto physician,) and were mixed 

 with near two hundred and seventy others, a part of which had been purchased, half fat, 

 in the month of June, preceding. In about four days after the southern cattle had been 

 turned out on the meadows they were brought up to the yard round the barn to be branded, 

 and after remaining there a few hours they were returned to pasture. The disease first 

 appeared, after a few days, among the cows in a field near the barn, and which were regu 

 larly milked in the yard used to confine the southern eattle until branded, and in a pair 

 of fine working oxen, which were regularly and daily fed and yoked in the same yard. 

 Several other cattle were successively attacked, to the number of at least twenty; all of 

 them, except one, died. All those purchased half fat in June died. My advice being 

 asked, I went to the field where several of the cattle lay ill, and was told that the first 

 symptoms were loss of appetite and weakness of limbs, amounting to inability to stand; 

 when they fell they would tremble and groan violently. I saw several in this condition. 

 Some discharged bloody urine, others bled at the nose. The bowels are generally very 

 costive. Upon being opened, the kidneys were found inflamed and sometimes in a state 

 of suppuration, and 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 with 

 out 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 contagion of 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 infecting 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 inquiries on the sub 

 ject. The country of the long-leaf pine has been said to be the native place of the infec 

 tion, but with what certainty I am 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.&quot; 



Old residents of the piedmont region, between the tide-water areas and the Blue Ridge, 

 are familiar with this form of disease ; and the cattle drovers who have brought stock from 

 the country of the long-leaf pine to greater elevations and higher latitudes, testify with 

 remarkable unity to the constancy of its appearance and the uniformity of its prominent 

 characteristics. The following statement obtained by the Statistical Division of the -De 

 partment of Agriculture, in April, 1867, from Mr. J. Wilkinson, of Athens, Georgia, a 

 reliable cattle dealer of good judgment and great experience, embodies the essential points 

 of this oft repeated testimony : 



&quot; I have been a cattle dealer for twenty-five or thirty years, and in that time have 

 had many deaths among my stock by this disease, and have in consequence taken some 

 notice, meanwhile endeavoring to learn its causes and how it was brought about. I notice 

 that cattle scarcely ever take the fever if let remain where they were raised, and I am 

 fully convinced it is generally brought on by a change of climate. For instance, you take 

 cattle from the mountain country to the low country and they will take the fever in a 

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