12 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



jicnorally have overlooked. Valcntiiii's remarks, incomplete as tliey are, 

 had beeu anticipated by numerous reports concerning the spread of the 

 foot and mouth disease, or epizootic aphtlue, from east to west. As 

 contagious cattle diseases travel in the lines of communication estab- 

 lished by war or trade, so do they appear together or in succession 

 according to their nature, the length of their period of incubation, and 

 the circumstances under which the movement of cattle is conducted. 



It will serve to clear up many points of doubt if this point is under- 

 stood. Epizootic aphtluv, or the foot and mouth disease, {Maul n. Klanen- 

 seiiche of the Germans,) has a short latent stage of two or three days. 

 It moreover spreads to all warm blooded animals, so that herds infected 

 with contagious diseases might on their travels, as they often are, be 

 seized by tliis malady, and then the steppe murrain or rinderpest, which 

 has a latent stage of a week, or the lung plague which remains latent 

 for a month, six weeks, or more, may break out wherever signs of com- 

 munication between cattle of different parts have been furnished by 

 the rapidly-evolving and curable aphthiB. Tlie poison of one disease 

 does not counteract or prevent the accession of either of the two others, 

 and one animal may in succession have the three maladies. In Ger- 

 many, France, Holland, and England, the foot and mouth disease has 

 usually preceded outbreaks of lung disease and even rinderpest. In 

 America, this has not been the case, inasmuch as the voyage across the 

 Athintic has usually been sufQcient to purge animals of the conta- 

 gium of epizootic aphthae, even if they had been shipped with the disease 

 on them, which is not likely, from its very obvious and rapid manifest- 

 ations. 



It is necessary to make one more remark here, which may serve to 

 facilitate the accm-ate reading of the history of cattle plagues. Although 

 the lung plague has undoubtedly prevailed more constantly, and pro- 

 duced a total mortality greater than that due to the steppe murrain, 

 nevertheless the rapid slaughter of cattle by rinderpest at once sets 

 peoi)le to adopt repressive measures, and, both by killing and isolating 

 the di sease itself, tends to supersede other cattle plagues. When it enters 

 a country like Great Britain, where all animals which had a slight chance 

 of contamination from public markets were more or less infected with 

 the virus of lung plague, rinderpest naturally reached those spots first, 

 cleared the cattle out, and extinguished pleuropneumonia. 



Now we shall see that the history of the three maladies I have alluded 

 to are in many points practically inseparable, so far as their dissemina- 

 tion in Europe is concerned, and this fact alone would suffice to induce 

 me to refer to the American outbreaks separately. 



In ir).S(>-'87 the foot and mouth disease was noticed in Silesia and 

 other ]»aits of ICastcrn l^irope. In 1<J!)5 Valentini described the coin- 

 cident inllanijuation of the feet of cattle and aphtlue in man.* And 



* Sub ajquinoctio antuiiiii:ili:i, augusto decrt'into, inllaiinuatio <,niis;ivaniin. linguae et 

 orisiuhoiuiiiibus, in Inutis vcruni pedum intUuuuiatiuuc!s,observavi liinc imlc. — Loc.Cit. 



