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THE LUNG PLAGUE, 



BY JOHN GAMGEE, M. D. 



INTEODUCTION. 



The lung plague of cattle, developed alone as tlie result of contagion , 

 recedes and is extinguished wherever the people are fully informed of 

 its origin and nature, and measures based on such knowledge are 

 adopted and enforced. Americans can learn this from Massachusetts. 

 It is, however, the most insidious and the most deceptive of all malig- 

 nant bovine disorders. It penetrates and travels far and wide, where 

 unsuspecting farmers and dairymen are far from skilled in the veterin- 

 ary art. It kills, and yet there are survivors which resist all further 

 attacks, and in the course of time they tend to form a small but useful 

 nucleus of insusceptible stock, which enables the i^eople to go on, 

 though in pov-erty, and hope for better luck. Everj^ one strives, but in 

 secret, lest the publication of facts should prevent the sale and transfer 

 of unhealthy or infected stock. Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 

 Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia, furnish wide fields in 

 which to determine the truth of these statements. 



In x)erusing the history of contagious pleuro-pneumouia, it will be 

 found that the experiences of the New World are but repetitions of those 

 recorded by Europeans. 



In advising as to the most certain means whereby so destructive a 

 malady may be eradicated from this country, I have been actuated by 

 the belief that the diffusion of knowledge, in a form that will carry con- 

 viction home to every intelligent American, is the most certain means 

 whereby to deal a death blow to the lung plague. There are many pru- 

 dent and earnest leaders of the agricultural body in every State, who 

 can work, and will work, if armed with reliable information; and it is 

 my belief in this that has induced me to spare no labor in rendering 

 this as complete and satisfactory a record as possible, of all the knowl- 

 edge on the subject that is at present at our disposal. Farmers must 

 not be alarmed at the scientific garb which must necessarily invest such 

 a work. If they follow me through, without a dictionary, they will not 

 be left in doubt as to my meaning, and I hope not a few will rise, after 

 a perusal of what follows, even though they nuiy inhabit the far distant 

 I)rairies and the mountains of California, and exclaim that it is the duty of 

 every American, and especially of every American farmer, to manifest 

 his interest in the extinction of a malady that may for centuries, if 



