SECRETARY'S REPORT. 21 



fatal exists. It has been demonstrated to the commissioners for Massa- 

 chusetts, that the last state of this disease is more pernicious tiiiu the 

 first, — in other words, that recovery is worse than death. We say to 

 the farmers of jMassachusetts, wlien the disease appears in your herds, 

 separate the sick from the well, and both from all other cattle ; fatten 

 the cattle if you can, for beef, and kill all of them. This is the only safe 

 and effective remedy. 



The commissioners followpd the trail of the Bordentown disease to 

 Philadelphia. There the disease had committed great ravages; one 

 man was reported as having lost his entire herd of sixty cattle. Treat- 

 ment was here resorted to as in Bordentown, but the disease had 

 evidently become an institution, and was looked upon with aj)athy by all 

 classes. They neither looked for its origin nor contemplated its future. 

 Hence, as in England, many regard the disease very much as they do 

 those diseases which affect various kinds of fruit trees; as an evil to be 

 endured, which will have its course and then disappear. In the mean- 

 time they must drink the milk and eat the meat of animals whose 

 inflamed or putrid lungs cannot supply the due and healthy proportion 

 of oxygen to the blood. 



From Phihidelphia the commissioners pi'oceeded to Brooklyn, New 

 York, to visit the herds said to be infected with a milk-disease similar 

 in its character to the pleuro-pneumonia of Massachusetts. They went 

 directly to Skillman Street, to the place described by Frank Leslie in his 

 illustrated paper. Near the cattle-sheds were several cows apparently 

 dying from disease, whose symptoms did not differ from those of cattle 

 infected with pleuro-pneumonia. Leslie's description had impressed us 

 with the idea that the cows in these places had been fed with offal col- 

 lected from tlie city, and that in consequence, and by reason of bad 

 ventilation, the disease had been there generated. This opinion seems 

 to have been endorsed by the surgeons who had visited those places. 

 They had entirely misrepresented the state of the case. By the kind- 

 ness and favor of Messrs. Wilson and Fletcher, distillers, we were 

 permitted to examine the cattle of various milk dairies. Mr. Fletcher, 

 who, by the way, is a Massachusetts man and every inch a gentleman, 

 conducted us through the cattle-sheds and explained to us the mode of 

 feeding. Tiie "swill," about which so much is said, proves to be nothing 

 more or less than the distillery grains, so highly prized in this region for 

 feeding cattle. In addition to these, more hay of the very best quality 

 is fed out than is g(;nerally fed by the farmers of JMassachusetts. 



It was evident to us that no disease was there generated. Mr. Fletcher 

 kindly procured for us a sick cow, which was killed and examined, and 

 proved to be affected with the genuine, infectious pleuro-pneumonia. 

 One man had lost his whole herd of forty by the disease. Whence did 



