234 CONTAGIOUS LUNG FEVER OF CATTLE. 



could no longer bo put. in their most profitaljlc uses, have never been comjiutcd, but 

 nnist enonnoiisly .s'lvcll the snra total. 



England had a hard lesson to learn, and she has been forty years in learning it, but 

 wo may depend npon it ushe has now learned it most thoronghly, and can no more 

 forget it nor treat it with indifTereuce while the present generation .survives. Many 

 years ago I was engaged, with other veterinarians who had acquainted themselves 

 witli the continental experience and literature, in enforcing on Great Britain the truth 

 that to deal with this disease economically they must kill out the poison within their 

 own borders, and exclude all stock from infected countries. Then, as now, we found 

 many alleging that the disease was native to the soil, and occurred sporadically, not 

 epidemically. Then, as now, we found men bearing the name of veterinarians, who 

 had fallen so far behind the age as to support these allegations, being either criminally 

 ignorant, or so morally oblique that they preferred the wrong because the iiopular side. 

 So long as it can bo shown that this disease never invades a new country, but as im- 

 ported in the animal body or in some of its products, so long will all claims for its 

 spontaneons generation, its sporadic appearance, or its develojjment from certain local 

 conditions, like swill-feeding, be ptit out of court. 



THE DISEASE PROPAGATED BY CONTAGION. 



The history of the malady in all time, and in all countries and hemispheres, east, 

 west, north, and south, testifies with one voice that out of the steppes of Eastern 

 Europe and Asia it is propagated by contagion alone. The nnreasoning and misleading 

 talk about ' ' no epidemic " is, therefore, in the highest degree reprehensible. The atfec- 

 tion is not an epidemic in the sense of being due to sonio generally diffused influence, 

 which acts alike upon all the stock of the country, and strikes them down indiscrimi- 

 nately, and without regard to proximity or contact. Were this the case, onr efforts to 

 permanently extirpate it were vain. But its spread is always and only proportionate 

 to the facilities for contagion and infection. And the i)re,sent comparative immunity 

 of America is only due to'the fact that the plague reached here at that seaporti toward 

 which the greater part of the cattle traffic of "the country tends, and from which few 

 animals are removed inland. Given in the United States the same free movement of 

 cattle from our infected points to all points inland as was till recently seen in Great 

 Britain, and there would speedily follow the same general infection of the conntry. 

 This is sufficiently illustrated in our past American experience. Massachusetts im- 

 ported the disease from Europe, and although it was met by repressive measures as 

 soon as recognized, it cost the commonwealth two years and' $70,000 to extirpate it. 

 It was imported into Brooldyn, and though it had to fight its way against the uniform 

 current of cattle traiSc eastward and northward, it hasextended to New Jersey, Penn- 

 sylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. 



My recent observations in this neighborhood are in perfect harmony with the above. 

 The stables at Blissville, holding 800 to 900 cattle, fatting and milking, the property 

 of different owners, who could jiurchase when they chose in the suiTounding infected 

 locality, could not fail to become a prominent hot-bed of the disease. Had" snch sta- 

 bles, with all their drawbacks of overcrowding, filth, and swill-feed, been thoronghly 

 disinfected, filled with healthy "Western stock and sedulously secluded from all neigh- 

 boring cattle and visitors, they would not have become infected with contagious pleu- 

 ro-pnenmonia. Again, at Fifteenth street, Brooklyn, I found that all. or nearly all, 

 the dairies in the vicinity had recently suffered from the disease, and that this infected 

 center was within two blocks of Prospect Park, where the herd of Jerseys had been 

 subjected to its ravages in August and September. At New Lots, Km,^s County, where 

 I found seven infected herds in a very limited area, the testimony ot the owners was 

 to the effect that the disease only appeared and spread through their herds as they 

 bought new cows from jobbers. At Roslyn, Queens County, I found two infected herds ; 

 the first contaminated by two cows bought from a New York jobber, and the second by 

 two cows bought from the first. In New York City I found one infected herd, caused 

 by a co\y ])urchascd from the same jobber whose cows took the disease to Roslyn. Tho 

 Conne<-ticut herd which I examined at Morrisauiawas infected by two cows purchased 

 from a New York jobber, and the same man, according to his own swoni testi)nony, 

 was proceeding to resell members of the same infected herd into other dairies when his 

 career was cut short by tho action of the metropolitan board of health. Nor were tho 

 results in snch cases but the infection of one or two in a herd; where the diseased cow 

 was introduced a general infection was the usual consequence. All that I could learn 

 alK)ut the progress of tho disease in this and former ye.ars was to the same effect. The 

 malady never appeared apart from the introduction of strange animals, and when in- 

 troduced the general infection of the herd was the consoqueuce. 



RAPID SPREAD OF THE PLAGUE. 



The disease is not widely prevalent, because it extends its r.avagcs only by contagion 

 and infection, and the conditions of tho American cattle trade have been strongly op- 



