No. 4.] WORK OF CATTLE COMMISSION. 227 



nothing. Their milk dried up immediately ; they could 

 not recover from it, and that made a great loss, although 

 there were but few that died. Now, in treating that disease 

 we first tried absolute isolation. Everything was shut up. 

 Cattle were not allowed to be driven along the highway 

 at all, and we hardly allowed a man to use his oxen on 

 the farm. Everything was closed. You may say there 

 was practically a quarantine of all the moving cattle of the 

 State. The next thing was to purify the cars that brought 

 cattle from the West. The next thing was to purify 

 Brighton, Ijecause the cattle infected with this disease had 

 been driven there ; and all the sheds and barns were purified, 

 along all the highways and driveways to Brighton, wherever 

 cattle went with the foot and mouth disease and had left the 

 trail behind them. It was so very contagious that an animal 

 just driven across the road where those diseased cattle had 

 passed would be sure to develop the disease. It would 

 break out in from three to ten days. The Cattle Commis- 

 sioners bought six hundred barrels of carbolic acid, and we 

 compelled the Boston & Albany Railroad, althcjugh they 

 were willing to do it, to have every car that came in loaded 

 with cattle thoroughly cleaned out, and then saturated it 

 with carbolic acid. We did the same thing to all the sheds 

 and l)arns at Brighton, and we induced the farmers who had 

 the disease on their premises to use the acid, and use it 

 freely. In that way we stamped out the disease, and there 

 has not been a case in Massachusetts since. This much for 

 the foot and mouth disease. I won't stop to speak about the 

 symptoms, for I hope you will never see it, and so will not 

 need to know anything about it. 



The next disease that came to our attention was hog 

 cholera. The first case of what is called hoc: cholera 

 appeared in the State in 1881, — 1 mean since the existence 

 of the Cattle Commission. There were cases away back in 

 the old time at a remote date. In 1881 there was one case, 

 a very, very bad case. It caused very great loss in one 

 valuable herd of seventy-five thoroughbred Chester swine. 

 It was brought to that herd by swine going to be slaughtered 

 at Squire's establishment. They got loose, and were put 

 into the premises of the man that owned the swine. We 



