20 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



been scrutinized with the utmost care and vigilance. No opportunities 

 have been suffered to pass without improvement, and no efforts have 

 been regarded as vain which promise to throw Hght upon the origin and 

 characteristics of the disease. Two of the three commissioners commenced 

 their h\bors with a feeling that by careful inquiry and by thorough 

 examination, they should be enabled to demonstrate to the public the 

 inexpediency of the action of the former board of commissioners, as 

 ■well as the groundlessness of the apprehensions of many in regard to 

 the fatal character of the disease. 



A number of persons had published treatises to prove that pleuro- 

 pneumonia was generated in poorly-ventilated barns, and was not 

 infectious. The facts, as developed to the commissioners, have con- 

 strained them to discard their first impressions, and to deny the positions 

 of the various v.'riters before alluded to. They have, moreover, 

 thoroughly convinced themselves that the worst apprehensions in regard 

 to the disease are well founded and wise. They have found the disease 

 prevailing in barns of every variety of structure, and of all degrees of 

 ventilation, and even in the open fields. They have traced it from root 

 to branches, whither it flows as surely as the sap flows in trees. 

 They do not find a single case outside of the line of transmission. As 

 surely as every rivulet tends toward the sea, does each case connect itself 

 Avith its fountain head. The conclusion is irresistible, that if any disease 

 be infectious this one is. In Massachusetts the disease was introduced 

 by four Dutch cattle imported by Mr. Chenery, of Belmont. 



But it is said the same disease exists in New York, New Jersey and 

 Pennsylvania. The commissioners determined to see for themselves. 

 They went to New Jersey. They were met in Bordentown by a 

 veterinary surgeon of that place. Dr. Jennings, by a large stock-breeder 

 and noble-hearted farmer, Adolph Mailliard, and by others, members of 

 a committee of the agricultural societies. They visited herds which had 

 been infected with disease ; found some where a large portion had died. 

 They killed and examined a sick cow, and identified the disease with that 

 in Massachusetts. In all instances where it existed, it had been intro- 

 duced by cattle brought from Philadelphia. The api)rehensions of the 

 farmers in that region had been aroused, and the commissioners found 

 that a species of isolation had been resorted to ; but this was far from 

 being thorough and eflicient. Cattle were allowed on the highway, even 

 in some of the injected districts. Very erroneous impressions existed 

 in regard to the character of the disease, even among those who were 

 called to treat it. Attention was given only to such animals as had 

 come down with the disease, and attempts were made to treat these by 

 various remedial processes, and those which lived and recovered their 

 vital energies were regarded as safe — an error, than which, none more 



