20 RINDERPEST. 



Also, it is gravely stated in a communication on the nature 

 of this disease, transmitted to Lord Bloomfield, and by 

 liim to the Home Government, that Avith a straw from an 

 infected stable, half a dozen healthy stables could be infected. 

 All such statements may be grouped together as sufficient, 

 if not incontestable, testimony of the ready communicability 

 of this poison by contact, and other instrumentalities of con- 

 tagion proper. 



But when we learn that it is also conveyed by currents of 

 the atmosphere, as in instances where, for a distance of 

 three miles, it was carried by a strong prevailing wind (the 

 air being charged with much moisture) from byres where 

 the disease existed, to perfectly healthy herds; or where, from 

 the same causes, it has overleaped all quarantine regulations, 

 we have sufficient evidence of its dissemination by currents 

 of the atmosphere, and thus being propagated in accordance 

 with the laws of infection proper.* 



We have adduced at this time these items of evidence as 

 to the easy and rapid diffusion of the Einderpest, in order 

 to supply as best we may any seeming defect in the testi- 

 mony laid before the English commission to make out the 

 historical proof of the dissemination throughout Great Britain 

 of the germs of this murrain from the Esthonian importation. 

 We may thus seem to trench too rapidly upon a discussion 

 properly pathological, and to anticipate the handling of our 

 second main division to which we will at once proceed. 



 Prof. Brown gives in his testimony (let Eep., p. 21) an account of the outbreak at Whitwell as 

 from some beasts bought in the Metropolitan market, on the let of July, and its transference to 

 Thimble Thorpe, a distance of three miles, as \vell as other places at leatt equally distant, where 

 there " could not be traced any direct contagion, and no direct contact with diseased animals." 

 lie thinks it quite possible that the contagion could be carried by flies. He was also cognizant of 

 the attack on the stock of Miss B. Coutts and Lord Oranviixe, in pastuifs quite pnrate. 

 In the first case there were diseased animals three-quarters of a mile off, and the outbreak occur- 

 red a short time after a thunder storm, when the wind blew from the Infected places. Yet sheep 

 in an adjoining pasture had been several times In the market. In the latter case, where only 

 seven out of one hundred and thirty remained, Mr. Pantbr, the balllfl", holding to the theory 

 that the diseases of 1865 and 1745 were the same, and with some show of consistency, because he 

 believed that the pest broke out spontaneously In the London cow shed, during the hot weather 

 of June ; states that the nearest place where the plague existed prior to Its discovery In the 

 stables, under his care, was 400 yards ofl'. lie states also that pleuro-pneumonln was chronic on 

 the farm, " Lord Qbamvills never having been a month without it in the last four years.** 



