THE LUNG PLAGUE OF CATTLE. 19 



amounting, at $30 per head, to a total value of $43,500,000. And still 

 it prevails wit h unabated fury, standing with the infected unfenced 

 ranges of South Africa, Europe and Asia as a solemn warning of our 

 own impending fate should we, too, delay till the infection shall reach 

 our western plains and Territories. 



LUNG PLAGUE IN TASMANIA AND NEW ZEALAND. 



As might be expected from the position of Tasmania, on the coast of 

 Victoria, it was early infected by cattle brought from the latter, and by 

 18G4 the disease was universally prevalent in the island. 



New Zealand was not infected till 1864, when contaminated cattle 

 were introduced, llere and in Tasmania there was but a repetition of 

 the experience of Australia. Thorough sanitary measures were delayed 

 until the disease had gained the open ranges, when it spread from herd 

 to herd and bade defiance to all human control. 



INFECTION OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



The importation of lung plague into Massachusetts, though not the 

 first introduction of that disease into America, may be mentioned first, 

 because its history is complete from its inception to its final extinction 

 in 1865. Mr. Winthrop W. Chenery, of Belmont, near Boston, who had 

 repeatedly imported Dutch cattle with the best results, had four more 

 sent him in the spring of 1859. They were procured in Purmerend 

 and the Boemster, and were shipped in April from Rotterdam, an in- 

 fected town, where they had been kept a few days in stables prior to 

 shipment. These cows were forty-seven days at sea, and arrived at Bos- 

 on the 23d -May. All were at once taken to Belmont, though two were 

 so ill that they had to be conveyed in wagons, one of the two having 

 been unable to stand for the last twenty days at sea. This cow was 

 killed as hopeless on the 31st of May, and the second died on the 2d June. 

 A third cow of this importation sickened June 20, and died in ten days. 

 The fourth showed no sign of illness at any time. The next victim was 

 a cow imported in 1852, which sickened August 20, and died before the 

 end of the month. Others now followed in rapid succession, and in the 

 first week of September Mr. Chenery, for the first time suspicious of the 

 true nature of the disease, isolated his herd and refused to sell on any 

 account. From that time to January 8, I860, twenty-six more died. 



Unfortunately, on June 23, he had sold three calves to Curtis Stod- 

 dard, of North Brookfield, Worcester County, one of which was noticed 

 to be ailing on the way home. Several days later Leonard Stoddard 

 took this calf to his farm to cure it, and kept it in his barn with forty- 

 eight other cattle for four days, when he returned it to his son's place, 

 where it died August 20. Curtis Stoddard lost no more till November 

 1, when he sold eleven young cattle to as many different persons, and 

 wherever these went the disease appeared. In one instance more than 

 200 cattle were infected from one of those Stoddard heifers. Of the 

 nine cattle which Stoddard retained seven were killed and found to be 

 badly diseased. 



An ox of L. Stoddard's sickened two weeks after he had returned the 

 sick calf to his son, and fourteen more cases followed in the course of a 

 few weeks. He kept eight oxen for teaming, and one team staying over 

 night at Mr. Needham's infected his oxen, of which eight died, and the 

 remainder were slaughtered by the State authorities. 



