298 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 



have alike snccumbed to the scourge, and there seems to be no abatement except in 

 localities where the material to act njiou has disappeared or been exhausted. Some 

 persons have lost all, others two thirds, and he is indeed fortunate who has saved 

 half his stock. The dead carcasses lie bloating around fields and on highways, and 

 nothing — not even a buzzard — will touch them. The stench arising from these putrid 

 carcasses is almost intolerable, and fears are entertained that a pestilence will follow. 

 On the 22d of April we collected jjartial statistics from two of the nine wards into 

 •which the parish is divided. As far as we were able to ascertain the deaths in those 

 two wards amounted, at that date, to 3,187. Many individuals, in handling and skin- 

 ning the animals, have been poisoned. Some have already died, others will probably 

 die, while still others will escape with the loss of a hand or an arm. 



Mr. Thomas B. Gilbert writes from Oakley, La., under date of June 

 29 last, as follows : 



About the middle of April last a fatal disease broke out among cattle, horses, mules, 

 hogs, and sheep in this pai'ish (Franklin) and the adjoining parish of Richland. It 

 attacked all of the above-named animals almost simultaneously, making its appear- 

 ance first among the cattle a few days after the dreaded buffalo gnats came in. The 

 time for the buffalo gnats to make their appearance here varies with the heat or cold 

 of winter. They came earlier in 1882 than I ever knew them to come before — say, 

 about the 5th of March ; but the usual time is from the 1st to the 10th of April. This 

 year they came about the 1st of April, and in a few days multiplied into millions; 

 spreading over the entire country, and no animal could survive their attacks many 

 hours unless protected by smoke. They have a great aversion to smoke, and this is 

 the only protection our animals have from their ravages. Work animals are greased 

 as an additional protection. The gnats were more numerous this year than common, 

 but not more so than they were in 1882. In this parish (a small one) about 3,000 head 

 of horned cattle died in a few days, and about 300 head of horses and mules, .5,000 

 or 6,000 head of hogs, and as many sheep. The horses and mules are still dying at 

 intervals. In these the disease assumed the form of charbon ; it did the same with 

 many cattle; and what is singular, the only cattle, horses, and mules that recovered 

 were those that it attacked in that form. All those attacked in the other form of 

 the disease (i. e., without external swelling) died. Now, what could have occasioned 

 this dreadful and fatal plague among our domestic animals? The disease ajipeared 

 in a belt of country, say 25 miles in extent from north to south, and extended at least 

 that distance east and west. North of that line there was no disease, and south of it 

 there was none. How far west on that parallel the disease extended I do not know. 

 But on the east the Bayou Macon was the line of demarcation. 



It is safe to say that the people of Franklin and Richland parishes have lost more 

 than $150,000 worth of cattle, horses, mules, sheep, and hogs from this fiital disease. 

 I think that next year a coujpetent man from your Department ought to be sent into 

 every county of Arkansas and Mississippi, and into every parish in Louisiana infested 

 with buffalo gnats to study tbeir habits, origin, and the cause of the disastrous effect 

 they are yearly having upon the inhabitants and the domestic animals of the infested 

 district. This pest is assuniing such alarming proportions as to threaten the depop- 

 ulation and abandonment of all the high-land country adjacent to or bordering upon 

 the overflowed regions of the Mississippi Valley. It is not confined to the valley 

 proper, but the highlands contiguous to, and for many miles inland, are worse cursed 

 with the buffalo gnats than the lowlands themselves. I was born and raised here, 

 am 46 years old, and never saw or heard of the pests until 1865. They have come 

 with the annual overflows every year since, and their ravages are so far extended over 

 this region of country, and so fatal to man and beast, that the continued occupation 

 of the country is problematical. Some deaths and many cases of charbon have occurred 

 among our people, both black and white. 



