STATISTICAL AND HISTORICAL REPORT OF SPLENIC FEVER. 201 



the case, recorded on page 194, at Haraptonburg, New York, and in tli.it no positive 

 proof is given that the animal communicating the infection was not a Texan.* 



5. Southern cattle removed to localities characterized by the same climatic conditions 

 (as from one portion of the Gulf coast to another, or upon the same parallel of latitude,) 

 do not communicate disease to local stock. 



6. The virus appears to be eliminated from the system after a stay of a few weeks 

 or months in a northern climate, so that no infection is communicated to the cattle with 

 which they come in contact. 



7. A preponderance of testimony tends to establish the theory that the infection is 

 conveyed through the voided excrements. It does not appear that the disease has ever 

 been communicated &quot;except to animals that have fed upon pastures or in lots soiled by 

 the excrements of the southern cattle.&quot; 



8. The period of incubation is not of uniform length. From causes which may be 

 left for medical investigation to determine, the potency of the virus is variable. Sometimes 

 a week intervenes between the exposure and the attack ; frequently a period of ten days 

 or two weeks elapses; sometimes two, three, or six weeks intervene; and in one case in 

 Washington county, Arkansas, the time of incubation was three months. In portions 

 of Arkansas, in which the climatic conditions are similar to those of the region from 

 which the migrating cattle come, no infection occurs; and in proportion as a section 

 assimilates in climate to such region, it is reasonable to suppose the liability to the disease 

 is lessened, and, probably, the period of its incubation extended. 



9. The disease runs a brief course of a few days, generally but three or four, often 

 but one or two, and proves fatal in nine cases of every ten. 



10. Liability to infection is so imminent that few exposed animals escape. When 

 circumstances favor the greatest virulence of the disease, whole herds have often been 

 destroyed, and the cattle of entire districts nearly all swept away, while beyond the line 

 of exposure, distinctly marked as the boundary of a sweeping conflagration or resistless 

 tornado, not a herd nor an animal has been touched. 



11. Medication has been of little service, though the testimony gives color to the 

 probability that a slightly reduced mortality might be secured by skillful medical treatment 

 and feeding with soft mashes. 



12. The losses from this disease for a few years prior to the war, and for years since 

 its close, cannot be accurately stated, but undoubtedly amounts to several millions of 

 dollars. The greatest fatality has been in Missouri and Kansas. In 1858 the loss in 

 Vernon County, Missouri, was $200,000. Losses were widely distributed and severe 

 throughout southern Kansas and southwest Missouri in 1866 and 1867; in 1868 they 

 were less in these States, as the result of general enforcement of restrictive laws, but 

 were heavy and alarming in eastern Illinois and western Indiana, when the prairie pastures 



*, Joseph Poole, a commissioner representing Indiana at the Illinois convention in 1868, said, on this point: &quot;My own 

 experience, and all the authentic information I have been able to obtain, goes to show and prove most conclusively that in the 

 most aggravated cases of the disease among native cattle, and where they are dying by scores, and other native cattle are in a 

 field or inclosure at a proper distance from any point that may have been infected by Texas cattle, you may drive native cattle, 

 sick with this disease, into the field witli the native cattle in good health, and not one of the healthy cattle will ever be infected 

 or sick with the disease.&quot; Such were the facts elicited and generally admitted by all at the convention, after the most strict 

 inquiry and quite a spirited discussion upon the subject. The New York commissioners, in an official report dated 

 September 5, 1668, (before the outbreak at Hamptonburg, ! said: &quot;We have not heard of a single case of the disease having 

 been taken by any animal that lias not been in contact with Texas cattle or with their excretions. We have had authentic 

 evidence that Texas cattle that have passed over a road, dropping the excrement thereon, have communicated the disease to 

 native cattle that passed over the same road forty-eight hours afterward. 



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