CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 261 



cost and are costing the British Government millions of pounds sterling 

 annually, is it not wise for us to accept the signals of precaution and 

 prevent them from becoming indigenous ? As yet rinderpest aiul foot- 

 and-mouth disease have not obtained a foothold, and contagious pleuro- 

 pneumonia has not passed the i)oint of possible extinction. Pleuro- 

 pneumonia reached England about ISili; foot-and mouth disease in 

 1839; sheep-pox in 1847. Of rinderpest there have been four out- 

 breaks, viz., in 1715, 1865-'6G (the most destructive one), 187li, and 

 1877. We have been singularly fortunate in that we have escaped two 

 of these formidable diseases. Kinderpest is not very likely to obtain a 

 foothold here, but foot aud-mouth disease, with its great contagiousness 

 and its immense loss to milk-producing animals, is greatly to be feared. 

 Fortunately, rumors of an outbreak in the Far West proved to be un- 

 founded. But the fact is well known that more than once it has arrived 

 at our i)orts from abroad, and has been prevented from spreading here 

 by rigid inspections on arrival and close quarantine after landing. Dur- 

 ing the past year the disease has been so prevalent in the United King- 

 dom as to cause widespread alarm and great pecuniary losses. 



W^e propose in this paper to state some facts, observations, and opin- 

 ions as to contagious pleuro-i^neumonia, and also, in connection with the 

 detail of some experiments as to foot-and-mouth disease, to offer a few 

 comments upon it. 



CO>'TAGIOrS PLEURO-PNEVMONIA. 



The general course and symptons of pleuro-pneumonia are so well 

 i known, and have been so fully and accurately described in the reports of 

 I the United States Department of Agriculture, that there is no need of 

 i repeating them here. The only points upon which perhaps there is 

 I need of more extended observation and a more concurrent testimony is 

 i' whether climate or other conditions have modified this disease as found 

 ' on American soil, and whether different grades of stock are equally sub- 

 ii ject to its ravages. Xo one can see much of the disease without being 

 I struck with the great variations in its malignancy. We have seen out- 

 I breaks in which every animal attacked seemed early to become mortally 

 i sick, and where one or both lungs changed in a short time from a weight 

 1 of three pounds to over twenty. In other cases the course of the dis- 

 I ease has seemed mild, and most of the animals were likely to recover. 

 ;l This has led to a distinction among some veterinarians, so that they 

 ' have come to speak of certain cases as English or European, and of 

 j others as American cases. It would be a good service if this Depart- 

 [ ment could obtain the comparative statistics of English and American 

 ' cases, and the accurate testimony of creditable veterinarians who liave 

 I had in charge many cases both in this country and abroad. 



It has been asserted that in certain exposed sections, as on Stateu 

 Islaiul, common pneumonia is frequent and fatal among cattle, and that 

 some of these have been mistaken for contagious plcuro-itnenmonia. 



