STATISTICAL AND HISTORICAL REPORT OF SPLENIC FEVER, 183 



seriously affecting the interests of productive industry; and whereas such disease is propa 

 gated by the introduction of cattle from the State of Texas and the Indian Territory, south of 

 Kansas; and whereas the want of a scientific investigation of the said disease has rendered 

 void any effort to arrest its ravages : Therefore, 



&quot;^Resolved by the Souse of Representatives of the State of Kansas, (the Senate 

 concurring,) That our Senators and Representatives in the Congress of the United States 

 are instucted to urge and support an appropriation by said Congress to enable the Depart 

 ment of Agriculture to make the said scientific investigation, and that a copy of this reso 

 lution be forwarded to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, and also to 

 the Commissioner of Agriculture. 



It was stated, in connection with this resolution, that the people of Southern Kansas, 

 conscious of their danger, and distrustful of the efficacy of governmental action for their 

 defense, were then taking the matter into their own hands, and organizing vigilance com 

 mittees to arrest and force back the Texas cattle movement. A meeting, representing the 

 farmers living in the vicinity of McDowell, Humboldt, Clark, and Lyon Creek, had just 

 organized a large committee of resolute farmers, fully able to put in force an illegal but 

 salutary restriction. 



THE OUTBREAK IN 1868. 



Early in June of 1.868, the &quot;Spanish,&quot; &quot;splenic/ or &quot;Texas cattle&quot; fever, appeared 

 at Cairo, Illinois, the most southern point in the State, and the place of transhipment of 

 Texas cattle from steamboat to railroad cars. It was a new and speedy mode of obtaining 

 Texas cattle, by which they were introduced into, the prairies of Illinois in less time than 

 was previously occupied in reaching Kansas on foot. As might have been expected, the 

 cattle in the vicinity of Cairo were soon dying in large numbers; and as repeated ship 

 ments were dispatched into the interior, the stations at which they were yarded and fed, 

 preparatory to distribution by different railroad lines, became centers of infection, spread 

 ing disease among native stock coming upon the same herding grounds or drinking from 

 the same streams or ponds. 



At Tolono, the junction of the Illinois Central and Toledo and Wabash railroads, 

 where the disease appeared about the 20th of July, it swept away nearly all the cattle of 

 the neighborhood, two hundred and thirty-five cows dying prior to the 1st of August. 



It spread rapidly through Illinois and Indiana, appearing only where Texas cattle had 

 been dropped at cattle yards, or on routes over which they had been driven to feeding 

 grounds ; and in a few instances in Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and in New England, 

 it was communicated by the southern long-horns to native cattle. 



The alarm became general, and repressive measures were everywhere adopted by 

 boards of health, city governments and State authorities. The Commissioner of Agricul 

 ture, in continuance of efforts now beginning to be appreciated, authorized an investigation 

 by a veterinarian then in the country, who had been prominent in similar labors in Europe, 

 Prof. John Gamgee, of London. Upon this tour of observation and examination he was 

 accompanied by H. D. Emery, editor of the Prairie Farmer, as a volunteer assistant. 

 The results of that and other practical inquiries into the nature, causes, and operations of 

 this mysterious disease are recorded in this volume. 



