Lung Plague in Cattle. 617 



areas of consolidation, less dyspnoea, and usually affects smaller 

 animals (birds) as well. At the necropsy the presence of asper- 

 gillus in bronchia and lung tissue is conclusive. 



The acute pulmonary congestion of heat stroke is sufficiently 

 identified by the conditions under which it occurs, its sudden and 

 rapid progress, the implication of the brain, and its occurrence in 

 other animals similarly exposed. 



Such conditions as atelectasis, pulmonary actinomycosis, dis- 

 tomatosis, or eckinococcus . the congestion of merairialism, etc,, 

 should be readily recognized by the attendant conditions, analysis 

 or necropsy. 



Attempts have been made to diagnose lung plague by securing 

 a reaction, local or general, as the result of injection of the steril- 

 ized lung exudate or cultures, but they have proved eminently 

 unreliable. The susceptibility of the serum to change under 

 manipulation, the existence of hyperthermia before the injection, 

 and the disposition to local infiltration under the lung plague 

 poison are apparently insuperable obstacles. 



Treatment. No treatment has been devised that would warrant 

 the preservation of the infected animals when the alternative of 

 prevention is available. The question is an economic one, and with 

 a disease that is so insidious, with such a long incubation, with so 

 many occult and chronic cases liable to escape observation and 

 recognition, and with such a constant and prolonged exhalation 

 from the lungs of the virulent material and the certainty almost 

 of the diffusion and preservation of the latter, no more suicidal 

 policy could be adopted than the preservation and treatment of 

 the sick. 



If allowed at all, treatment should be conducted in an isolated 

 locality, well secluded from visitors and wandering animals includ- 

 ing birds, and under the most intelligent antisepsis. It should 

 proceed on general principles according to the individual mani- 

 festations of the disease, and might include serum therapy from 

 immunized animals. 



Prevention. For a country like the United States, now happily 

 free from the lung plague infection, the important object is its 

 permanent exclusion. For this the federal quarantine for three 

 months now in force ought to be effective. The only question 

 would be in the case of small importations of one or two animals, 



