230 CONTAGIOUS LUNG FEVER OF CATTLE. 



anotlier page from llie liistory of this disease iu other coiiutries. The instance of Aus- 

 tralia is the most recent as ■well as the most striking. The lung fever was introduced 

 into Melboui'ne in 1858, by a short-horn English cow, which died soon after landing. 

 Having been confined to an inclosed jdace, there is every reason to believe that vrith 

 her the disease would have ended, liad not a teamster turned his yoke of oxen into 

 the infected park under cover of the night. These oxen working on the streets infected 

 others, the disease soon spread to the open country, and the mortality increased at an 

 alarming rate. Vigorous measures for its suppression were adopted, thousands of in- 

 fected and diseased cattle were slaughtered, but all proved of no avail. Not only 

 were the free, roaming herds infected, but so many places were contaminated that it 

 was soon perceived that helj) from this source was not to be expected. Destroy a 

 whole infected herd, and you still left the infection in the station from which, in its 

 unfenced state, other herds could not be excluded, and where they were certain to 

 take iu the germs of the malady. After enormous losses had been sustained by the 

 combined operations of the pest and the pole-ax, it was concluded that the remedy 

 was worse than the disease, and the colonists reluctantly fell back on the expedient 

 of inoculation. This is based on the fact that the disease is rarely contracted a sec- 

 ond time by the same animal, and it can be practiced on all calves with losses at the 

 rate of from two to five per cent, only, so that the mortality is insignificant as com- 

 pared with the thirty to fifty per cent, which jierish where the afiection is contracted 

 in the ordinary way. The great objection to inoculation is, that it can only be prac- 

 ticed at the expense of a universal diffusion of the poison, and of its maintenance in a 

 state of constant activity and growth. With such a universal diffusion of the virus, 

 the stock owners are virtually debarred from introducing any new stock for improving 

 the native breeds, or infusing new vigor or stamina, inasmuch as such new arrivals 

 would almost certainly fall early victims to the plague. Australia, therefore, now 

 suffers from the permanent incubus of the lung plague, and can only import high-class 

 cattle at great risk. 



This is an occurrence of yesterday, but it is only a repetition of the immemorial ex- 

 perience of the steppes of Russia. There we find the same conditions of great herds 

 roaming free over immense uninelosed tracts, and all the facilities for an easy and 

 wide diffusion of animal poisons. There, accordingly, we find the home, in all ages, 

 of the animal plagues of the Old World. To these endless steppes Europe and Euro- 

 pean colonists owe their frequent invasions oihmg fever, rinderpfnt, aphthous fever, and 

 sheep-pox. To these are to be charged the losses, to be estimated only by many thou- 

 sands of millions, which have repeatedly fallen on the other civilized countries of the 

 world. From these steppes the disease has spread over the continent on the occasion 

 of every great European war, dating from the expulsion of the Goths from Plungary 

 by Attila and his Huns, in A. D. 376, down to the present Turkish war, which has se- 

 cured the extension of the rinderpest to Hungary at least. On these steppes, too, the 

 Russian veterinarians believe the rinderpest, at least, to be an imported disease 

 derlrcf] from Eastern and Central Asia, yet all their efforts to crush out this or the 

 lung fever, though receiving the freest support from the Russian Government, have 

 failed. The same conditions exist, to a largo extent, at the Cape of Good Hope ; and 

 there, too, the lung fever, imported in 1854, has acquired a permanent residence. 



PREVENTIVE MEASURES DEMANDED. 



Such is the history. Now comes the qiiestion pregnant Avith weal or woe to our 

 future stock, agricultural, and national interests : Shall we learn from the disastrous 

 experience of others and extirpate the lung plague from the United States while it is 

 still possible, or shall we sit quietly l)y with folded hands and await the inevitable, 

 early or late, infection of our open Western stock ranges, and then repeat, for the 

 benefit of other nations, the already twice-told tale of a desperate and extravagant 

 but fniitless attempt to suppress a plague which we have criminally allowed to pass 

 beyond our control? With or without a prodigal but vain effort to crush out the 

 I)oison, the results maybe thus summed up: The infection of stock-yards, loading- 

 banks, cars, and markets, and a general diffusion of the plague over the Eastern States. 

 This Avould imply a national loss, by cittle disease, like that of England, but much 

 more extensive in ratio with our great numbers of stock. Thus England, with Iht 

 0,000,000 head of cattle, has lost in deaths alone from lung fever iu the course of forty 

 years over $500,0(10,000. We, therefore, with our 28,000,000, should lose not Icsy tlian 

 $2,000,000,000 in the same length of time, allowing still a wide margin for the lower 

 average value per head in America. And this terrible drain is for deaths alone, with- 

 out counting all the expenses of deteriorated health in the survivors, of prixlnce lost, 

 of loss of progeny, of loss of fodder no longer safe to feo<l to cattle, of diiuinislied 

 harvests for lack of cultivation and niauur<\ of quarantine and separate attendants 

 whenever new stock is brought on a farm, of ch^msing .and disinfection of slitHls and 

 buildings, »fcc., w]ii(;h heconie absolutely essential in the circnmstances. 



Wo do not include the expNcnse of supervising the tTade, examining and quarantin- 



