14 THE LUNG PLAGUE OF CATTLE. 



stated above by Fenger. Several later invasions from Germany and 

 Holland, and notably a very extended one on the occasion of the Prusso- 

 Danish war, were promptly stamped out by the same summary meas- 

 ures. Though the duchy is to-day a part of the German Empire, yet, 

 by its energetic measures against lung plague, it maintains an immunity 

 to which Germany proper is a stranger. 



INFECTION OF SOUTH AFRICA. 



South Africa was infected with lung plague in 1854, by means of a 

 bull imported from Holland by a gentleman of Cape Town, for the pur- 

 pose of improving his stock. This animal had been two months at sea 

 and six weeks at the cape before he was noticed to be amiss. The desire 

 to avail of the coveted Dutch blood sufficed to insure a wide diffusion of 

 the infection before the bull sickened and died. The colonists, too, 

 ignorant at first of the terrible peril which threatened them, took no 

 pains to destroy or segregate the animals which had run the risk of in- 

 fection, and before they became alive to their danger the plague had 

 spread beyond all human control. This result was speedy on account 

 of the peculiar nature of the country and its inland trade. Being un- 

 fenced, South Africa presents on a still larger scale a method like that 

 which has been followed in Texas and our Western States and Terri- 

 tories, of herds branded with their owners' marks running free from 

 year to year and subject to no control, except at the yearly round-ups. 

 We have seen that in all countries where such mingling is permitted 

 in the Steppes, hills, and forests of Europe and in the large boarding- 

 pastures of Ireland the lung plague has spread rapidly and defied all 

 sanitary control; but in South Africa there is this further unfavorable 

 condition, that all commerce is carried on by ox -wagons, and the work 

 oxen become an additional and most effetive means of spreading the 

 contagion. 



On this subject the Eev. Daniel Lindley, a missionary, who appeared 

 before the Massachusetts legislative committee in 1860, makes the fol- 

 lowing statement, which is as interesting as it is instructive: 



This disease * * * was introduced from Holland, imported in the body of a bull. 

 A gentleman in Cape Town, wishing to improve his stock, made that importation and 

 with it that disease which has been to South Africa the severest scourge which has 

 ever fallen on its property interest. It was about six weeks after the animal lauded 

 he having been on board the vessel on the passage about two months before any 

 sign of sickness appeared in him. At the time it was not suspected that the disease 

 was a lung contagion, so long known in Holland. However, he died. He communi- 

 cated that disease to a great number of cattle, and before they became aware of the 

 evil that threatened them, it had been scattered about extensively. The question may 

 arise in the minds of the committee, Why was it not at once exterminated there as 

 you propose to have it here ? The answer to this question will be found in this state- 

 ment that I must make, in order that you may understand the circumstances of that 

 country. If you will imagine New England and a great part of the United States, 

 divested of its woods, its forests, leaving here and there thickets and jungles, and a 

 grass country, that is without fences, without any inclosures, and all this country 

 spread over with cattle by the thousand for the property of the inhabitants of the 

 country consists in cattle and in sheep and over all the country cattle are grazing by 

 the thousand. I have seen 1,600 in one herd, but generally the herds are from one to 

 five hundred. In those parts of the country where lions and tigers have been exter- 

 minated, these cattle are allowed to roam night and day where they please, and they 

 wander considerable distances, sometimes miles around. In addition to that all the 

 produce of the country which is brought to maket, whether to supply the city of Cape 

 Town or Fort Elizabeth, or other towns lying along the coast, is brought down from 

 the interior in large wagons drawn by oxen. All the goods imported into the country 

 and taken inland are conveyed on these wagons, drawn by oxen ; and to each wagon 

 the custom of the country gives six pairs of oxen. 



The country is large, it being from Cape Town to the extremity of any civilization 



