486 



LUNG-PLAGUE OF CATTLE. 



still quite active in opposing the work of river 

 improvement now in progress, for which Con- 

 gress made so liberal appropriations at its last 



The Burnside will case, in which it was 

 sought to set aside the order of court appoint- 

 ing Oliver Beirne, of West Virginia, testa- 

 mentary executor and residuary legatee of the 

 late John Burnside, the millionaire planter of 

 Louisiana, has been decided in favor of Beirne. 



The New Orleans Cotton Exchange have 

 erected a fine building at the corner of Gravier 

 and Carondelet Streets. The corner-stone was 

 laid by Governor McEnery on January 23, 1882. 



The two hundredth anniversary of the dis- 

 covery of the mouths of the Mississippi River, 

 by La Salle (April 10, 1682), was celebrated 

 with appropriate ceremonies. 



The following is the estimated amount and 

 value of the products of the State for 1882 : 



Sugar, 22T,000 hogsheads $25,000,000 



Molasses, 14,000,000 gallons 5,000,000 



Cotton, 480,000 bales 20,000,000 



Eice, 61,100,000 pounds 3,250,000 



Cotton-seed products 2,000,000 



Grain 10,000,000 



Miscellaneous 2,000,000 



Total value $67,250,000 



LUNG-PLAGUE OF CATTLE. Conta- 

 gious pleuro-pneumonia, or lung-plague of cat- 

 tle, continues to be a source of solicitude, and 

 has been made the subject of extended official 

 investigation. It has been shown to be thus 

 far confined in the United States to a narrow 

 section along the middle Atlantic coast, and, as 

 it spreads only by infection, it is deemed en- 

 tirely practicable to stamp it out of existence 

 and prevent its reappearance if the proper 

 measures are taken before it has been carried 

 into the South and West. 



The origin of this distemper, like that of all 

 contagious diseases, is concealed in remote ob- 

 scurity. There are indications of its existence 

 in ancient times, and authentic records of its 

 prevalence in Europe nearly two hundred years 

 ago. It has a permanent existence in the un- 

 f enced mountain regions of Central and East- 

 ern Europe, and was first carried thence into 

 domestic herds by the commissary operations 

 of great wars. The conflicts attending and fol- 

 lowing the French Revolution first brought it 

 into the channels of commerce so as to attract 

 attention in consequence of the active trade 

 and interchange of cattle which they stimu- 

 lated. There were periodical ravages in North- 

 ern France and other parts of Central Europe 

 from 1820 to 1840. It made its first appear- 

 ance in Holland about 1830. Ten years later 

 there was considerable importation of Dutch 

 cattle into Great Britain and Ireland for the 

 purpose of improving stock, and this infection 

 made its appearance at Dublin in 1841, and 

 in the vicinity of London in 1842. Since that 

 time there has been more or less trouble with 

 it wherever there was a market for imported 

 stock, while those centers of the cattle-trade 

 which rely on domestic breeds and sell the 



native product instead of buying foreign, have 

 been free from it. In England, vigorous re- 

 pressive measures have been employed to de- 

 stroy the infection, but it has had a continuous 

 prevalence in Ireland in consequence of the 

 constant interchange of cattle that is going on 

 there. The plague was carried into Northern 

 Europe Denmark, Sweden, and Norway 

 about 1847-'48, and was taken to South Africa 

 from Holland in 1854, and to Australia from 

 England in 1858. In these southern countries 

 its ravages have been especially severe, and it 

 has been found very difficult to deal with it, 

 as a warm climate is favorable to its spread. 



The lung-plague was first brought into the 

 United States by means of a single cow 

 bought from the captain of an English vessel 

 by a milkman of Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1848, and 

 the disease, as it now exists in this country, is 

 traceable to that one case. An entirely sepa- 

 rate infection was introduced into Massachu- 

 setts by an importation of Dutch cattle in 

 1859, but was dealt with so vigorously that in 

 six years it was utterly exterminated. The 

 infected cattle first introduced consisted of 

 four cows imported for a stock-farm, and, 

 owing to insufficient understanding of the case 

 and inadequate precautions, it was permitted 

 to spread, through the sale of calves. It was 

 carried into several localities in Massachusetts 

 and sent into New Hampshire. The introduc- 

 tion of diseased cattle into the latter State was 

 stopped by proclamation and a vigorous slaugh- 

 tering of herds in which the plague appeared, 

 and, in the spring of 1860, the Legislature of 

 Massachusetts adopted measures for the extir- 

 pation of the contagion, which were entirely 

 successful. Commissioners were appointed, 

 with authority to slaughter and pay for all 

 herds in which the disease was known or sus- 

 pected to exist. Besides the animals which 

 died and those disposed of by the selectmen of 

 infected towns, during a temporary suspension 

 of the commission in 1863, 1,164 cattle were 

 condemned to slaughter by the commissioners. 

 The cost to the State was $77,511.07, including 

 $10,000 spent by the towns during the suspen- 

 sion of the commission. The total loss to the 

 farmers of the State from the disease was esti- 

 mated at $250,000. Since then New England 

 has been free from the plague with the excep- 

 tion of occasional cases carried into Connecti- 

 cut from New York. 



From the Brooklyn case of 1848 the infec- 

 tion was carried into stables in the vicinity, 

 and thence to the cities of New York, Jersey 

 City, and Newark, and its existence has been 

 continuous to this day. Its prevalence among 

 cows fed from the refuse of distilleries led to 

 the swill-milk excitement of some years ago, 

 and it has been clearly shown that the diseased 

 condition of some of those cattle was not due 

 to their stabling or feeding, but to the conta- 

 gion of the lung-plague. Its spread was pro- 

 moted by the practice of pasturing cattle pro- 

 miscuously in open spaces made up of vacant 



