THE LUNG PLAGUE OF CATTLK. 



simply because the germ had not been introduced: and in its absence Dp 

 movement nor privation of cattle generated the disease in the Scandi- 

 navian peninsula. So, later, n eat tie traffic set in from the infected por- 

 tions of the continent, and in its absence no climatic vicissitudes served 

 to generate the plague. Later still, when infected Ayrshire cat tie were 

 introduced from Scotland, the result showed clearly that the imported 

 plague found in Sweden a not uncongenial home (see below). Similarly, 

 in the war of the Spanish succession, in the end of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, though this plague was spread over the whole of Central Europe, 

 yet Spain escaped, for the simple reason that no cattle were drawn from 

 beyond the Pyrenees, K<pially harmless in this respect have been the 

 extensive military operations by the French and Knglish in Spain from 

 1SOS to 1S1;>, and finally the frequent civil wars which have disturbed 

 that country since the accession of Isabella 11 in 1833. It need only 

 be added that Spain is not a mercantile country, requires to import no 

 cattle from abroad, is effectually barred from inroads of infection by the 

 1 'yrenees, and is far removed from the busy cattle trailic now maintained 

 between the infected regions and the marts of Western Europe, and es- 

 pecially of Great Britain; and Spain has accordingly been spared the 

 devastations of the lung plague and other animal pestilences. Thus 

 every additional page of history serves to confirm the truth that this 

 plague is to-day propagated by contagion, and contagion alone. 



INFECTION OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



Though the invasion of Great Britain was effected through the me- 

 dium of commerce, yet it is h'ere placed under a separate heading as the 

 first of a series of extensions of this plague over watery barriers that had 

 long placed a limit to its progress. The British Isles were infected 

 through imported Dutch cattle. The infection, which reached Holland 

 from Flanders in 1830, and from Prussia in 1833, had in 1835 extended 

 to Utrecht and South Holland. At first it ravaged the vicinity of the 

 great cattle marts of Eotterdam and Schiedam, from which it extended 

 over the whole of the Netherlands, including Frieslaud on the north and 

 the islands of Zealand on the south. In the interval between 1839 and 

 1841 the British consul at the Hague at different times sent Dutch cat- 

 tle to a friend near Cork, Ireland, with the view of improving the native 

 breed. With one of these importations the lung plague was introduced; 

 and meeting with conditions favorable to its diffusion, it spread in a 

 few years over the entire island; which, from that time to this, has con- 

 tinued to send regular installments of the infection to Great Britain. 



In 1842, under the pressure of the chartist agitation, the British Par- 

 liament reduced the duties on foreign cattle to 20s. a head on oxen and 

 bulls and !.,"$. on cows, and in that year 4,2G4 head of cattle were im- 

 ported. But the price of beef still remained high, and in 1846 the duty 

 on lean cattle was entirely abolished, with the result of increasing the 

 importations for that year to 45,043 head, and inducing a steady increase 

 till, in J853, no less than 125,253 were imported. This enormous drain 

 upon Western Europe proved injurious to both buyer and seller. By 

 increasing the demand for stock and drawing upon more distant coun- 

 tries to supply this, it drew a great influx of disease on Western Europe, 

 and produced that extraordinary diffusion of the lung plague which has 

 a 1 ready been noticed. The effect on England was, if possible, still worse. 

 The Dutch and Belgian owner of infected stock, with ruin staring him 

 in the face, was easily persuaded to sell his cattle at a low price for ex- 

 portation; and many of these, with their fatal freight of contagion, were 



