STATISTICAL AND HISTORICAL REPORT OF SPLENIC FEVER, 191 



the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers from Louisiana, which the citizens were unwilling to receive 

 until assured that they had been out of Texas a full year. They did not understand that 

 they might as safely have come from Texas as from Louisiana. The outbreak occurred 

 seventy to seventy-five days from their arrival among cattle pastured with them, of which 

 ten died and three recovered. 



Illinois. The disease first made its appearance at Cairo, about the 10th of June, 

 1868, among the cows of the town, causing much fatality and pecuniary loss ; but it did 

 not extend through the county, from the simple fact that the migrating cattle were not 

 distributed through the country, but were sent northward by rail. 



The heaviest losses occurred in Champaign County, where fifteen to eighteen thousand 

 head were reshipped or distributed from Tolono, the junction of the Illinois Central and 

 Toledo and Wabash Railroads. The number lost in this county has been estimated at five 

 thousand, worth $150,000 at a low valuation. Our correspondent reported as follows : 

 &quot; Spanish fever has prevailed in this county, commencing on the 27th day of July, 1868, 

 and cattle have continued to die of the same disease up to January 1, 1869. In this town 

 ship the loss is ninety per cent,; entire county seventy-five per cent. It is a blood disease ; 

 the blood under a powerful glass proves this. It has been argued, and tried to be proven, 

 that it is a disease not easily taken. I have now in my possession a large amount of evi 

 dence from good men, showing it to be a disease very easily given. A number of cases 

 can be given where the only exposure was by driving a short distance over the road where 

 Texas cattle had passed, from tame pasture to barn lots, the natives being kept up all the 

 time only when in transit from lots to pasture. Blood examined in the earliest stages of 

 the disease shows a diseased condition of the same. As the disease progresses from day to 

 day the blood, examined by a good glass, shows the gradual destruction of vitality, and at 

 dissolution is a mass of putridity.&quot; 



In the southern part of Cook County the disease, communicated by contact with cattle 

 shipped to Chicago, prevailed for a short period ; in Ford County the loss was estimated at 

 five hundred head ; in Grundy one hundred died in a single town ; in Douglas there were 

 forty fatal cases ; in Clinton nineteen ; in Du Page one man lost eighteen head ; fatal cases 

 were also reported from St. Clair, Pulaski, Effingham, Pope, Massac, Macon,and Iroquois. 



Indiana. A drove of one hundred animals coming from Texas, by water via New 

 Orleans, was landed at Evansville, and after a stay of six hours taken by rail into the inte 

 rior. They appeared to be in good condition ; none died on the way, and very few after 

 reaching their destination ; but the symptoms of those that sickened were the same, a day 

 or two before death, as those of the native stock attacked. Nearly a month elapsed from 

 the passage of the Texas drove to the outbreak among the native stock, of which fifty died, 

 only one case (and that of doubtful convalescence) is known to have recovered. 



In July, 1868, sixty Texas cattle were pastured on the farm of S. A. Fletcher, jr.; 

 near Indianapolis, Indiana. His domestic cattle were separated by a fence from the Texas 

 stock, and watered at a stream flowing through their pasture. A neighbor had thirty cows 

 in a pasture also adjoining the long horns, but the infected water did not pass through it. 

 In ten days two of Mr. Fletcher s cattle died, and five others gave evidence of the disease, 

 to which all but one succumbed, in periods ranging from twenty-four to forty-eight hours 

 from the outward manifestation of the disease. None of the other herd were attacked, 

 though the cows were only separated by a fence from the Texas cattle. 



