68 THE LUNG PLAGUE OF CATTLE. 



we have not learued that the governor has taken any active measures 

 to stamp out the affection. In the old stock-yards on Baltimore street 

 (Baltimore and Potomac, and Pennsylvania), we found, on inquiry, that 

 cattle from all quarters are admitted indiscriminately, whether from the 

 infected city stables or the uninfected Western States, and that cattle 

 for export, and those for store purposes at home, are shipped to their 

 destination from these inclosures, so recklessly exposed to infection. 

 The result has been that New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have 

 made frequent complaints of infection introduced into these States by 

 infected cattle from Baltimore ; and even in Washington we were in- 

 formed of infected cows having been sent to that city from the capital 

 of Maryland. Partly to remedy this state of things, new stock-yards 

 (Baltimore & Ohio) haVe been constructed at Baltimore, into which, 

 we were informed, only western and southern cattle were to be admitted, 

 but here again a fatal blunder was committed ; Virginia was accounted 

 a Southern State, Virginian cattle were admitted, and, as a result, on 

 the first day the yards were open four chronic cases of lung plague were 

 detected in them. 



In the District of Columbia, and in Fairfax County, Virginia, the dis- 

 ease is still extensively prevalent. The free movement of cows from 

 stable to stable, and from place to place, is in no way interferred with, 

 so that the disease finds new channels constantly open for its progress. 

 The treatment of the sick is also a frequent practice, and the distempered 

 beast, standing among the healthy, and in the buildings to be afterward 

 occupied by the healthy, serves through both channels to perpetuate 

 the virus. The city dairymen of Washington, as of other cities, are 

 very apprehensive of official interference as calculated to ruin their 

 business, and, therefore, when a sick cow is discovered, they often lose 

 not an hour in sending her to the slaughter-house and having her car- 

 cass converted into beef. 



This is a sorry showing for those who are earnestly looking for an ex- 

 tinction of this affection; but it is a state of things which must continue 

 until more stringent measures are enforced over the whole infected 

 territory, including the entire suppression of the free exposure or move- 

 ment of cattle, the slaughter of all cases of the disease, and the thorough 

 disinfection of the infected premises and things. 



That system which ignores the necessity for inspection in localities 

 now or recently infected, which allows the free movement and trading* 

 in cattle in such districts, which maintains the practice of pasturing or 

 otherwise exposing the herds of different owners indiscriminately on 

 the same lots, which keeps up markets for the common use of cattle 

 from all sources, infected and uuinfected, and concludes that because 

 the disease is not reported it is therefore dying out, would only be 

 equaled by the covering up with putty and paint of the rotten rafters 

 of a decaying tenement. The landlord and tenant may be persuaded 

 that the beams are strong and sound, and the inmates may live on in 

 fancied security, but the final crash will not be delayed by a single day r 

 and the delusion will only be seen when the tumbling building buries 

 in death its trusting victims. 



In making these statements nothing can be farther from our purpose 

 than to thfrow any invidious reflections upon the executive or other offi- 

 cers of the various infected States. We are willing to accord them all 

 due credit for honesty of purpose, but we cannot ignore the fact that 

 they have failed to apprehend the full importance of this work and the 

 necessity for such measures of suppression as can alone be expected to 

 succeed. 



