24 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 



excitement. The market became mistoad.y, the price of cattle declined, 

 and buyers became exceedingly cautions. 



Ai)ril 9 I received information that Dr. McEachran, principal of the 

 Montreal veterinary school aiul live-stock inspector for Canada, had vis- 

 ited Neosho Falls, Kans., and BflQiigham, 111., as the representative of 

 the Canadian Government, and positively asserted that the malady at 

 both places was the real foot-and-mouth disease of Europe. April 10, 

 a telegram from the State agent for Kansas of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture conveyed the information, that the State vet- 

 erinarian had just reprted to the governor that six healthy cattle co- 

 habited with the sick animals had all contracted the disease, and that 

 further experiments by inoculation would at once be made. A letter 

 from the governor of the same date, received two days later, contained 

 similar statements. A few days later still an item appeared in the press 

 dispatches from Washington, stating that "a private dispatch was re- 

 ceived here to day from the governor of Kansas, saying that cases of 

 sickness among cattle which had been most carefully examined had 

 turned out to be true foot-and-mouth disease. He was afraid that 

 some cases had got in the herds. There was an attempt made at first 

 to keep the matter quiet, but the information was deemed such as should 

 go to the public." 



It now seemed that a repetition of the former excitement and panic 

 Was about to occur, and by your direction I visited Kansas a second time 

 with instructions to make such experiments as might be necessary to 

 demonstrate the non-contagious nature of the disease beyond question. 

 I reached Emi)oria April 20, and was there met by a telegram from Ne- 

 osho Falls asking me to join the State veterinarian and Professor Law 

 at the governor's office on the morning of the 22d. Not intending to 

 turn backward until the difference of opinion was conclusively settled, 

 I telegraphed in reply requesting these gentlemen to meet me at Em- 

 poria on their way to Topeka. This they did on March 21, and I had a 

 conference with them, at which the State veterinarian admitted that all 

 attempts to convey the distase by inoculation upon cattle, rabbits, and 

 sheep had failed ; that the second experimental lot of cattle which 

 had cohabited with the first lot when they were supposed to be suffer- 

 ing with foot-and-mouth disease had not been in the least affected ; 

 that the foot symptoms of the first lot had only been noticed with two 

 animals, were very slight and of exceedingly short duration ; and that, 

 finally, whatever the disease might be, it was not the continental foot- 

 and-mouth disease. 



After receiving this infurmation I returned to Topeka, attended the 

 meeting of the livestock commission in the governor's office, when the 

 State verterinarian rei)orted that the malady at Neosho Falls was not 

 the foot-and-mouth disease, and the governor sent out a (lisiiatch to 

 the same effect. 



On my way to Washington I visited the herds in the vicinity of Effing- 



