CONTAGIOUS LUNG FEVER OF CATTLE. 235 



posed to tliis. But the disease lias not only held its own for thirty-six yeara, biit ha3 

 slowly gaiued against every obstacle until it numbers its victims in six dihcrent States. 

 It is not wanting in virulence, but will, when it has a fair opportunity, sweep with 

 remorseless force over the entire land. To this it is daily tending. From Brooklyn it 

 has laboriously crept onward as far as Maryland and Virginia, and unlerss extirpated 

 it will continue its baleful coiu'se until, reaching our open pasturages of the West and 

 South, it will poison the sources of our cattle trade, descend upon our Eastern States 

 with every cattle-train, infect the rolling stock on all our great railroad Trunks, and 

 bid defiance to all control. Wherever it has met with similar conditions it has proved 

 thus intractable. In the steppes of Eastern Europe it has held perennial sv»ay despite 

 the best directed eiibrts of the Russian Government, and on the open pastures of Aiis- 

 tralia it still prevails, notwithstanding the most persistent and almost ruinous efforts 

 for its extermination. So will it prove should we neglect the present opportunity and 

 allow it to spread until it reaches our uufenced ranges of Texas, Kansas, Colorado, 

 Wyoming, &c. 



We are advised to employ inoculation. But what is inoculation? If successful, the 

 production of the disease artificially, with its prominent lesions, in a less vital organ. 

 In every stable where cattle are successfully inoculated the poison is produced in 

 unlimited quantity. It is diffused through tlio air. It lodges in the dry parts of the 

 building, in the fodder, etc., and is preserved for months and years. Unless these 

 buildings are subsequently disinfected, they are deadly to the first susceptible animal 

 that enters them. Finally, the immunity obtained by inoculation is not permanent, 

 but lasts at the most for about two years. Inoculation, therefore, is a ruinous recourse, 

 unless a country is already generally infected. It is itself a prolific means of spread- 

 ing the poison. It cannot be effectual, unless the whole bovine race of the country 

 ai'e operated on and all the calves as soon as dropped ; and so long as it is practiced, 

 the stables must be considered infected, and the stock coming from such infected cen- 

 ters must be held to be dangerous to the animals. No country in Europe has practiced 

 inoculation to so great an extent as Holland, and no country in Europe is to-day more 

 extensively ravaged by this disease. England has tried iuociilation to a very'large 

 extent, and England has been reluctantly compelled to abandon it. Aiistralia has 

 fallen back upon it as a dernier resort, and she has foimd that it only lessens the losses, 

 ■while it has failed to exterminate the diseasa 



THE INFECTION MUST BE STAMPED OUT. 



The day may come when we, too, may wisely follow Australia in adopting a general 

 inoculation as a palliative of the disease. But this can only be if we criminally neg- 

 lect the plague until it reaches om- Western stock-ranges and bids defiance to all 

 efforts at its'extinction. To follow such a course at the present time would be ruinous, 

 indeed, and those who counsel it cannot understand the problem we have to deal with. 

 As already remarked, England, engaged in extirpating the disease from her own herds, 

 will never offer us an unrestricted'trade in cattle so long as we harbor this insidious 

 enemy. A maintenance of infection by continued inoculation of our herds assuredly 

 means the indefinite suspension of oui- foreign live-cattle trade; and nothing will se- 

 cure the resumption of this trade short of the entire extermination of the malady. 



Certificates of soimdness of the cattle shipped are not worth the paper they are writ- 

 ten on. No one would knowingly exfjort sick animals to Europe, and no one is capa- 

 ble of detecting the existence of this disease during its lengthened period of incuba- 

 tion. We need not shut oiu- eyes to this fact, for assuredly the English, who have had 

 a far longer and harder experience of the disease, will not. Those who, knowing the 

 character of the malady, counsel any measures short of its speedy and absolute ex- 

 tinction, are the true enemies of the iive-stock interests and of the country. If their 

 words should prevail, the future generations of Americans, seeing their country more 

 ravaged tiian even the States of Europe, and by plagues exotic to her soil, will look 

 back with regret to 1 he time when it had been possible for their fathers to have averted 

 such a baleful legacy. 



It is still possible for us as a nation to do what lias been done by Norway, Sweden, 

 Denmark, Ilolstein, Oldenburg, Switzerland, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and 

 what is now being attempted in England, to stamp out this plague, which as .an 

 exotic should never have gained a footing on our shores. If llie governors and legis- 

 latures of the States now infected and if Congress do their duty, they Aviil follow the 

 lead of Governor Robinson, of New York, and spare no ellbrt nor expense until this 

 plague has been banished to the Old World, v.hence it came. And if every citizen 

 will do his duty ho will cause such power to be exerted on tliese State and national 

 authorities as will forbid any further neglect of this matter. No one having a full 

 acqu.aiutanco with the subject can afford to remain silent in face of the existing facts, 

 and this feeling alone has impelled me to jten the aliove remarks. New Y(u-k may act 

 alone, but, if so, she must either establish a long ([uarantine at her border or she will 

 Boon again import the disease from New Jersey. New Jersey may act independently, 



