34 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



maintain country farms on wliicli to graze tluMn while calving-. It stands 

 to reason, according to some, that such conditions must induce i)leuro- 

 pneunu)nia. In America-, sensation articles and skillful illustrations 

 have not been wanting, and no one can hesitate in declaring that the 

 cow sheds of Brooklyn and other cities are a disgrace to a civilized 

 peoi)le. 



Iluzard lirst described the cow houses of Paris as they were in 171):]. 

 It is needless to follow him through a long description of low sheds, in 

 Avhich a man could not stand erect, where cows were crippled into per- 

 manent rest, with their horns overgrown and distorted for want of regular 

 wear and tear, and in which fowls, pigs, and rabbits shared shelter and 

 a pestilential atmosphere. Delafond has described the wretched stabling 

 of hill farmers. How, then, can it be said that in these sheds, where the 

 lung plague always prevails, the conditions do not exist for its sponta- 

 neous origin ? 



It cannot be disputed that there are conditions — as when an animal suf- 

 fers from pleuropneumonia, and has but one lung to breathe with — under 

 which a large voluuu> of pure air nmy turn the scale from death to life. 

 It is also undoubted that the concentration of the poison so freely given 

 off in this contagious disease must materially favor its reproduction in 

 the systems of susceptible animals. But no one who has witnessed the 

 slow progress of the malady in town dairies, and the rapid destruction 

 of herds in open fields, can for a moment believe in the usual aggrava- 

 tion of the malady by bad stabling. Where the malady has been induced 

 among young stock by large dairymen so as to prevent after incon- 

 veniences, when the animals are fit to breed and yield milk, it has been 

 found that most survived when kept warm in close sheds. Eecommenda- 

 tious as to ventilating stables after disease had commenced, have at times 

 resulted in a much more rapid destruction of the cattle, and we are bound 

 to admit that a priori reasoning has often been at fault on this subject. 



ABUNDANT MILK SECRETION. 



The universal prevalence of the lung plague in town dairies, where 

 cows are kept for an abundant production of milk, has led to the theory 

 that the drain on the system thus kept up induces the pleuro-pneumonia. 

 It is asserted, and there appears some ground for the belief, that the 

 hunmn female, as well as the female among lower animals, is more sus- 

 ceptible than others to the influences of contagion, but so far no facts of 

 importance have ever been published indicating that an abundant secre- 

 tion of milk induces specific disease and malignant fev»'rs. Delafond 

 has referred to abundant production in dairies where pleuro-pneumonia 

 was always troublesome, and expresses himself as follows: "1 firndy 

 believe that cows which calve every ten or eleven months, iiiid whicli 

 are constantly yielding an abundant milk secretion, whether l)y being 

 fed abundantly on ri<li provcuilcr, or placing them in hot, damp stables, 

 so as KM'heck cutaneous and pulmonary secretion, soon have their chest 



