THE LUNG PLAiUTE OF CATTLK. 39 



INFECTION TIIKOrmi THK FOOD. 



We have already referred to the preservation of the lung-plague geri-u 

 in closely-packed fodder, bill in dry seasons or places where the exhala- 

 tions from the diseased lungs are quickly dried up the close packing is 

 not absolutely needful. As an example of this we have only t<j refer to 

 the infection of McKiunon's oxen through feeding on Mr. Boadle's in- 

 i'ected pastures at .Melbourne (see pa go IS). 



Of its conveyance through liquid food we have an example in every 

 infected swill stable. It is often the case that a single row or two rows 

 facing toward each other present more cases of the plague than do those 

 at some distance. The mode of feeding explains this. The troughs run- 

 ning the full breadth of the building are slightly inclined from one end 

 to the other so that the swill run in at the one end will slowly flow along 

 and supply the whole row. If, then, a sick animal is placed at any point 

 on the course of this trough he breathes upon the swill and saturates it 

 with his nasal detluxion as it flows past to the other cattle in the row. 

 This provision of a common trough for thirty or forty animals becomes 

 therefore one obvious reason for the prevalence of lung plague in swill 

 stables. Let the germ once be introduced, and between the closeness of 

 the building and the common feeding troughs it has the most ample 

 means for extension. That the swill can be fed with impunity even in 

 an infected district was well illustrated at the Blissville distillery stables 

 in 1879. These had been so badly infected that they were cleared out, 

 disinfected, and closed to cattle lor the summer. In autumn over 700 

 western steers were put into them and kept in the strictest seclusion, 

 not even a visitor being allowed to enter the premises, and not a case of 

 lung plague developed. Yet, at the very time referred to, half a dozen 

 herds in the near vicinity were in a bad condition of infection. 



This conveyance of the poison through the medium of clothes, fodder, 

 animals of other species, and solid objects generally, is fully recognized 

 by the best authorities of Europe, including Delaford, Bouley, Keynal, 

 Gerlach, Eolloff, Ilychner, Roll, Lafosse, Fleming, &c., and receives the 

 amplest confirmation from the wide-spread practice of inoculation. (See 

 inoculation.) 



Eychner says : 



The affection breeds a disease -germ a contagium of a volatile nature. That it 

 attacks the cow which stands in an uncleansed, infected stable, the many proof* of its 

 conreyatH'e through men and through horses that have stood in stables as males with cattle, 

 its steady extension through the same stable or herd, and, finally, its sure arrest by the 

 seclusion of stables and localities, afford the most conclusive evidence of this. (Boja- 

 trik.) 



lioll says : 



Contamination occurs from the contact of sound animals with sick on roads, on 

 pastures, in stables, through the medium of food, of straw that has been breathed upon and 

 xoiledby the infected beasts, through utensils that havebeen used about the latter, and through 

 men that have attended them. (Lehrbuch der Pathologic mid Therapie.) 



Fleming says : 



Healthy cattle have been contaminated after being lodged in stables that were oc~ 



" ' ' ' sick cattle 

 upon thiee 



ANIMALS SUSCEPTIBLE. 



Unlike the other great cattle plagues (rinderpest and aphthons fever) this confines 

 its ravages to the bovine genus. Currency has at different times been given to re- 

 ports of the infection of sheep, goats, and deer, but the transmission of the malady to 

 hese animals has never been satisfactorily proved. In Great Britain sheep have 



