THE LUNG PLAGUE OF CATTLE. 29 



with the cow-trade to which we have above adverted. That it is not 

 caused by the impure air in the stables is sufficiently proved by the fact 

 of its less intruded prevalence in spring, after a winter of seclusion in 

 these filthy hovels, than in autumn, after a summer's pasturage in the 

 open air. The same truth is seen in the entire absence of the lung 

 plague from our Western city stables, though these are in no respect 

 better than those on the Eastern seaboard. In the distillery stables in 

 the West 270 or 300 cubic feet per head is a fair average. In one case, 

 indeed, Woolner's distillery, at Peoria, two stories of the same building 

 were devoted to cattle, those in the lower story standing 45 in a row, 

 with an area of about 220 cubic feet for each and ventilation only by the 

 doors at the ends of the rows. The air was constantly saturated with 

 the emanations from the swill as well as from the lungs, skin, and ex- 

 cretions of the animals, which were kept in this condition from four to 

 six months, yet not a symptom of lung plague was to be found among 

 them. 



In some city dairies matters were even worse. The cows of one dairy 

 in Milwaukee were found in a hovel the ceiling of which was only 5 feet 

 high, and which allowed less than 150 cubic feet per each animal, while 

 drainage had been entirely neglected, and the building was surrounded 

 by a most filthy and malodorous puddle. Yet, these cows showed no 

 sign of lung plague nor of any specific disease of the lungs. 



These are by no means isolated cases. Analogous ones can be found 

 all over the West. Yet, the West knows nothing of the lung plague, 

 and in this respect reproduces the condition of Great Britain prior to 

 1841. The cow-sheds of that period were far more confined, close, filthy, 

 and unsanitary than those of to-day, yet in not one of them was the lung 

 plague generated until the importation of the germ from Ireland and the 

 Continent. So we need not fear the development of this plague from 

 these impure buildings until we allow the introduction of the virus from 

 the East, when these distillery stables and filthy city dairies will become 

 so many plague centers from which the infection will continually spread. 



LUNG PLAGUE NOT GENERATED BY FEEDING THE REFUSE OF GLU- 

 COSE AND STARCH FACTORIES. 



We have shown above that among the hundreds of thousands of 

 cattle fed in the West on the swill of distilleries, no case of lung plague 

 has ever been generated. We have only to add, with regard to the 

 acid products of glucose and starch factories, that, however injurious 

 they may be to the digestive organs when fed in excess, they have never 

 generated the virus of lung plague. At Buffalo, N. Y., large factories 

 of this kind are in existence, and the products are distributed widely for 

 cattle-feeding, but, as our investigations show, lung plauge is not to 

 be found in the vicinity of that city. There may be developed diseases 

 of the digestive organs and of assimilation, as shown in Dr. Earring- 

 ton's report, but no contagious affection of the lungs. Its absence is 

 the more conclusive that the city cows pasture on commons adjoining 

 the stock-yards, so that the disease once set up would have been per- 

 petuated and disseminated. That it has not been so, is abundantly 

 shown by the continued absence of the disease in Western and Central 

 New York and the whole of New England. The same is true of other 

 factories of the same kind in the Western States. Had the disease been 

 generated there, it would have been spread through the channels of the 

 cattle traffic, and have been perpetuated at all the great cities on the 

 different routes. 



