32 DEPARTMENT OF A.GRICULTURE. 



breathing the pure air of heaven as near th(» north pole as cattle have 

 reached, drinking the frozen waters of North America or the stagnant 

 pools in the s\vanii)S of the Carol inas and Louisiana during the hottest 

 sumnu'rs, the hard toils and sutferings of nuiiiy a ^Mexican yoke of oxen, 

 and, lastly, the greatest negligence of an agricultural people in relation 

 to the improvements of breeds, one and all have failed ever to induce a 

 single case of lung plague. Delafond had his theories. We have an 

 array of facts on our si<le as great and as incontrovertible as any ever 

 before adduced in support of any medical or other question. 



But brevity is not always desirable when the object to be attained is 

 the diffusion of an abundant and accurate knowledge, and interesting 

 points may be beuelicially discussed under the separate heads arranged 

 by Delafond. 



SPECIAL CAUSES PAVORING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DISEASE IN 



MOUNTAINS. 



Delafond asserts that in Switzerland, Piedmont, the Juras, the Dau- 

 phine, the Yosges, and Pyrenees, pleuropneumonia has existed per- 

 manently. He does not ascribe this to geological formation, but he 

 believes firmly, with almost all the veterinarians in mountainous dis- 

 tricts, that the disposition, topographic situation of mountains and val- 

 leys, the cold temperature during six mouths of the year, hoar frost, 

 heavy fogs, coldness and moisture of the nights and mornings on wood, 

 land pastures, or near lakes and rivers, frequent atnuispheric currents 

 in spring and autumn, sudden changes from hot to cold, dry to wet, or 

 vice versa, &c., &c., are the local determining causes which combine, 

 with other causes that have yet to be noticed, in inducing the lung 

 plague. Delafond's words are that the causes enumerated concur " a 

 donner naissance a la periimeumonie dans la haute et dans la basse mon- 

 tagney 



Delafond erred. He had not read Haller; and had he visited any 

 part where it was said the lung plague was a permanent inlliction, he 

 would have found, with Haller, that it was always arriving from some- 

 where, but never originating spontaneously. If we examine the 

 geographical distribution of the disease we shall find the mountains of 

 northern Europe, of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, free from the dis- 

 ease. And yet the special c.iuses he refers to predominate there. No 

 part of Europe has been more constantly devastated than Holland, 

 noted for its submerged condition and the vast drainage works which 

 render it inhabital)le. In the British isles tlie hills have always been 

 most free from pleuropneumonia. It has i)revaiUHl at all altitudes, but 

 the Scottish and Irish mountains, distant from high roads and the busy 

 traffic in cattle, have been the healthiest parts of our country. And in 

 America, too, the disease has traveled from the east southward along 

 the coast, attacking cities and farms most in communication with those 

 cities. It has not penetrated to the fine dairy farms on the hills in 



