INVESTIGATION OF SOUTHERN CATTLE FEVER. 



REPORT OF DR. H. J. DETMERS. 



Hon. George B. Loring, 



Commisioner of Agriculture : 



Sir: 111 the following 1 have the honor of submitting my report on 

 southern cattle fever. In my last report I took the liberty of stating 

 what has been accomplished, and what yet remains to be done; also 

 what I considered as the chief object of my investigation, namely, to 

 discover the true cause of that apparently mysterious disease. My ob-' 

 servations and experience of last year more than ever convinced me 

 that the (exciting) cause of southern cattle fever consists in something 

 tutimately connected with or dependent upon the peculiarities of the 

 Southern flora, and not — at least not directly — due to the climate and 

 higher temperature of the Southern States, which only indirectly exerts 

 its influence or aids in its production and propagation. The cause of 

 southern cattle fever consists in something that requires for its produc- 

 tion certain conditions given in the Southern States, or in those parts 

 •of our extensive territory in which the fever has its origin or permanent 

 source. Some, perhaps most, of the conditions favorable to its develop- 

 ment, and some of those unfavorable to the same, are kujwn. If one 

 •carefully studies the facts communicated in my last report, he will find 

 that decaying vegetable substances, a certain degree of warmth and 

 moisture, and a low elevation above the ocean, are necessary requisites 

 and important factors in the development of the infectious principle ; 

 while a low temperature, a high altitude, and, without hardly any doubt, 

 an absence of moist and decaying vegetable substances are detrimental 

 to its propagation. In proof of this, allow me to briefly restate some 

 of the more salient facts, apparently in part contradictory of each other, 

 but facts notwithstanding. As, however, my experience has only been 

 with Texas and Western cattle I will limit my remarks to them, without 

 intimating, though, that I regard the disease in (juestion as an exclu- 

 sive product of Texas or of the Southwest, for it is a well-known fact 

 that other Southern States and the West Indies are just as well a source 

 of southern fever as Texas. 



1. Native Texas cattle never contract southern cattle fever, and pos- 

 sess immunity against infection as long as they remain on their native 

 range or north of the same, provided they are not kei)t long enough north 



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