REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



healthy food. A very strong smell of acid pervades the atmosphere about the silo. 

 Could this ensilage have anything to do with the symptoms in these cattle? Every- 

 thing about the place eats it ravenously. 



Mr. Frank Gilmer, Charlottesville, Va., writing under date of 

 January 25, 1887, spe.-tks as follows of a cutaneous disease affecting 

 Ms hogs: 



Sometime last fall I bought a couple of thoroughbred Poland-China pigs of a 

 neighbor, and a day or two after I got them my manager found them covered with 

 small scabs from the size of a pin's head to that of a twenty -penny nail. They seemed 

 hearty, and after several washings with carbolic soap got well; but in the meantime 

 my two brood sows broke out the same way, and their pigs came much too soon, 

 and were dead when born. 1 have been told by some that the disease is the measles 

 and by others that it is the cholera. I never "had any disease among my hogs be- 

 fore. The animals have all recovered, and are now in pretty good health. 



In the latter part of January, 1887, Mr. William M. Moran, Gil- 

 ford, Loudoun County, Va., informed the Department that a. very 

 fatal type of pneumonia was prevailing among horses in that county. , 



Mr. S. S. Aiken, Deskins, Jackson County, Oregon, under date of 

 January 29, 1887, writes as follows concerning abortion among cows 

 in that locality: 



I inclose you a sample of pine moss, which is quite abundant on pine trees in 

 many localities along this coast. Cattle eat it eagerly at all seasons, no matter what 

 their condition or however good the pasture may be. However, they can get but 

 little except when it is provided for them by felling the trees, which is often done 

 to save stock during a hard winter after all other feed has been exhausted. Many 

 stockmen believe the feeding of this moss produces , abortion. I have noticed that 

 abortion often occurs, but I have attributed it more to the poor condition of the 

 cows than to the moss eaten by them. 



Mr. Leander, Woods, writing from Nashville, Brown County, Ind., 

 under date of May 8, 1887, gives the following description of a dis- 

 ease affecting horses in that locality: 



There is a disease now prevailing among our horses which has proved fatal in 

 some cases. I am not able to give much of a description of the disease, as I have 

 seen but one animal suffering with the malady, and it was in the first stage. It 

 finally died. From the best information I could get I would say that the disease 

 resembles diphtheria. The throat becomes very sore and swollen, and before death 

 a stiff corruption gathers around the root of the tongue, or at the hinge of the jaw. 

 In the case I saw, when they thought the animal was dead, they opened the side 

 of the jaw and about a quart of stiff corruption ran out. The horse seemed better 

 for awhile, but died in about three hours. 



Mr. T. J. 0. Morrison, New Madrid, Mo., under date of June 30, 

 1887, writes as follows concerning diseases affecting cattle, horses, 

 and mules in that locality: 



Some time 'ago I addressed a communication to the Rural World relating to a 

 strange disease that had developed among cattle in this section of Missouri. Since 

 then this disorder has taken a new form, or a different type of disease has taken its 

 place, which, though not as yet so fatal, is almost as serious in its results. It first 

 makes its appearance in a slothful manner, or indisposition to move, followed by a 

 vacant stare and glassiness of the eyes, which is soon followed by blindness, some- 

 times total, but more frequently of one eye. The animal appears to have fever, 

 with loss of appetite and shrinkage of flesh. Many persons abstain from the use 

 of milk, fearing this malady may have some relationship to "milk sickness," al- 

 though the affected animals present none of the usual symptoms of that disease. 

 The disease first made its appearance about the 1st of June. I first discovered it in 

 a young calf which refused the udder, and began drooping ^and lying around, mani- 

 festing great indisposition to move. This continued two or three days when the 

 calf died, whilst a few days later another, afflicted in the same way, recovered and 

 is now apparently well, except its sight, which remains very much impaired. This 

 disorder is becoming general in this neighborhood, nearly half of some herds being 

 afflicted with it. Various causes and remedies are suggested and discussed, but 

 none appear satisfactory or of sufficient credit to be generally approved. The cause 



