THE SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 



BY JOHN GAMGEE, M. D. 



The transportation of nortlieru cattle into Florida, Texas, parts of 

 Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina, and the traveling- of southern 

 herds across the grazing lands of States northward, result iu the sick- 

 ness and death of the animals which come within the range of a singular 

 form of contamination. In Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Virginia, Ken- 

 tucky, Carolina, and Georgia, the so-called Spanish or Texas fever has 

 been the cause of losses prior to and since the war, and more especially 

 during last summer, which have excited the most virulent opposition 

 among the stock-raisers of those States to the driving of Texan steers 

 across the prairies. The nature of this feeling is indicated by a letter 

 from Mr, S. Morgan Welch, of Waverly, Missouri, who, in a letter to 

 the Prairie Farmer of the 26th of September, 1868, says: "Talk to a 

 Missourian about moderation, when a drove of Texas cattle is coming, 

 and he will call you a fool, while he coolly loads his gun, and joins his 

 neighbors ; and they intend no scare, either. They mean to kill, and 

 will and do kill, and keep killing until the drove takes the back track ; 

 and the drovers must be careful not to get between their cattle and the 

 citizens, either, unless they are bullet-proof. No doubt this looks a good 

 deal like border-rufaanism to you, but it is the way we keep clear of the 

 Texas fever ; and, my word for it, Illinois will have to do the same thing 

 yet. 



"Congress ought to do something in regard to this stock. Very 

 stringent laws were passed in regard to the rinderpest, and yet it is 

 scarcely more fatal than Texas fever, only the latter is not contagious 

 among our native cattle. Texas stock should not be allowed to cross the 

 35th parallel of north latitude alive." 



With rare exceptions the States of Illinois and Indiana have not been 

 visited with splenic fever prior to 1868, and the great reason for this is, 

 that southern stock has been slaughtered in the west by butchers and 

 packers in the winter months, and have not been purchased in large 

 quantities by cattle dealers and graziers, to fatten on the western 

 prairies. But steers in Texas can be had in their prime for eight and 

 ten dollars in gold. It has been recently computed that there are five 

 million head in that State alone, and that the net yearly increase, after 

 allowing a discount of twenty-five per cent, of loss by disease and casu- 

 alties, amounts to seven hundred and fifty thousand head. 



It is impossible to exaggerate the sufferings Texan cattle endure in 



