238 CONTAGIOUS LUNG FEVEE OF CATTLE. 



drawn for their support. But tlie Britisli Isles remained perfectly exempt until 1839, 

 when the pleuro-ijueumonia reached Ireland by some cattle sent by the British consul 

 at the Hague. 



It spread from this center, reached England some time in 1841, and since the passage 

 of the tree-trade act of 1842 has been kept up by continual arrivals of infected conti- 

 nental stock. 



Yet it only reached where the railroads j)enetrated, and seemed to respect the High- 

 lands of Scotland, where the native black cattle only are bred, and into which outside 

 stock are never broiight. 



The United /States laiew no such contagious disease until the importation of aa 

 infected Dutch cow in Brooklyn, in 1843, and tliis, together with one or two other im- 

 portations, have fiu-nished the material for its extension over seven different States. 



Australia, with her thousands of herds, Avas respected until 1858, when an English 

 cow conveyed the poison which has since ravaged her herds without intermission. 



The Cape of Good Hope remained clear until 1854, when an English cow^ carried the 

 infection which still prevails in the capo herds. 



The same truth is shown negatively by the fact that every country and State that 

 has vigorously stamped out the lirst arrivals of disease, and taken measures to prevent 

 fiu'ther importation, has rid its territorj' of the pestilence. Among them may be named 

 Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Schleswig, Oldenburg, Switzerland, Massachusetts, and 

 Connecticut. Some of the countries have been again infected in connection with the 

 Danish and Franco-German wars, which, for the time, destroyed all safeguards, but 

 until such a contingency arrived their herds were preserved in health. 



The fact that in our country and in Western Europe this disease is propagated only 

 by contagion, ia the grand central truth round which all our thoughts of the malady 

 should revolve, and ux^n Avhich avo should base every measure adopted for its extinc- 

 tion. If the affection could arise spontaneously, from any faulty conditions of hygiene 

 in our own land, then farewell to all hoi)e of permanently ridding our herds of the 

 plague. But all history testifies to the contrary, and wo can foretell with as much 

 confidence as wo can the rising of to-morrow's sun, that if we coiild once extiuguisk 

 the products of the imported poison, we need fear no more contagious pleuro-pneu- 

 monia until it is again imported from an infected land. 



There is no such thing as a sporadic case of contagious pleuro-pneumonia, and no 

 epidemic case in the sense that it is due to some condition of life apart fi'om the pres- 

 ence of the virus in the country. Every case in this country, as in Western Europe, 

 the Capo of Good Hoioe, and Australia, is the result of direct or indirect contagion, and 

 of that alone. 



It is true that affections of the chest will occur in all future time as they occur in 

 other animals, and in man himself, and as they occurred in cattle before the importa- 

 tion of the contagious germ, but such cases have not been in the past and will not be 

 in the future the cause of the propagation of the disease from animal to animal, or in 

 otner words of the develoi)ment of a contagium. 



Extirpate fiom the country this exotic contagium and we can supjily unassailable 

 beef to the world. 



DANGER TO THE COUNTRY OF THE TOSSIBLE INFECTION OF WESTERN HERDS. 



For ten years I have been publicly warning the country of the danger of allowing 

 this disease to extend to our Western States and Territories. (See especially National 

 Live Stock Journal, March, 1878, and Transactions of New York State Agricultural 

 Society, 1877-78.) Infection of the Western herds means speedy infection of all the 

 cattle cars of the railways, yards, loading-banks, &c., and the starting of a constant 

 stream of infected animals towards our Eastern States and markets. 



This means a uniform infection of the country and losses of thousands of millions 

 of dollars in a short space of time. 



Worse than this, should the malady extend to our unfenced cattle-ranges it will be 

 practically unmanageable. Such has been the experience on the open steppes of Rus- 

 sia and the cattle-ranges of Austraha, where the most costly efibrts at the extinction 

 of the disease have proved futile and the poor palliation of inoculation has been estab- 

 lished. (See National Live Stock Journal, March, 1878.) 



DANGER OF INOCULATION. 



The public advocacy of inoculation demands a word on this subject. 



Successful iuoculaiion in favorable conditions leads to the loss of but two or three 

 per cent, of animals o])orated on. The survivors are jirotected from contagious 

 pleuro-pneumonia for a- variable period averaging two years. But every inoculated 

 aniuial is infected, the, iilaees where inoculated animals are kept are infected, all their 

 products are infected, and there must bo the most thorough system of disinfection for 

 all such i)lace3 and things before immunity can bo gained. Every new animal intro- 



