DISEASE AMONG SWINE AND OTHER DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 145 



and aiiotbev next week or next niontli, and liy tlie general infection that will be es- 

 tablished before its trne nature is suspected, it will prove far more destructive in the 

 end than would an active invasion of Texas fever, or eveu rin(lcri)est. England has 

 lost over $10,000,000 from rinderpest in the present century, but she has lost Imndreds 

 of millions from the less dreaded lung-fever. To save ourselves from similar conse- 

 <iuenees the government should see to it that this disease is arrested in its fatal course, 

 and tlioronghly eradicated from our soil. If nothing is done the time will inevitably 

 come when we will repeat the experience of Continental Europe, Great Britain, South 

 Africa, and Australia, when our agriculture will be cri^ipled, and when the extinction 

 of the plague will be a herculean, if not an impossible, task. 



A2>hthoi(S fever, rinderpest, roiereal disease of horses, and sheep-pox. — These are all for- 

 eign plagues, and at present happily unknown to America. All are exceedingly con- 

 tagious, and, excepting the first, cause a very high mortality. The first only, the least 

 fatal of all, and the least likely to be imported because of its short period of latency, 

 one to two days, has ever reached America, but the contingency which brought this is 

 even more likely to bring the others and an incomparably more terrible devastation. 

 One (the veneieal disease of horses) is almost as insidious and as long latent in the 

 system as lung-plague, and hence as likely to reach our shores in the frequent impor- 

 tation of horses from the continent of Europe. That our perils from such diseases are 

 but poorly understood even by those who ought to know them best, I infer frona a 

 recent article in one of our most popular agricultural weeklies, in which the veterin- 

 ary (?) editor speaks of rinderpest and Texas fever as identical. If one who assumes 

 thie title of V. S., and is upheld by a powerful newspaper, makes such a blunder, what 

 are we to expect of the ordinary Congressman ? Unlike Texas fever, rinderpest is 

 very highly contagious, spreads for some distance on the air, and is nnattected by any 

 changes of climate, temperature, or management. Texan fever, as we well know, is 

 limited to the pastures where the southern cattle have grazed, and is at once extin- 

 guished by the accession of frost. To adopt similar precautionary measures for the 

 two would be in the highest degree impolitic and prodigal. (For aphthous fever, see my 

 paper in Journal of New York State Agricultural Society, January, 1«71. For rinder- 

 pest, see report of Cattle Plague Committee of House of Commons, England, 18G6-'67.) 



Indiijenous animal contagia. — Among our native contagious diseases there are still 

 four or live that demand special attention. These are, glanders and farcy, canine mad- 

 ness, malignant anthrax, tuberculosis, milk-sickness, and contagious foot-rot. 



Glanders and farcy. — These are but one disease under different manifestations. 

 Highly contagious and deadly not only to horses but to man, this affection is one that 

 demands the most stringent measures for its extirpation. And yet we are doomed to 

 see the victims of this disease freely exposed in public, kept in livery stables, watered 

 at public drinking-troughs, worked on threshing machines which travel from farm to 

 farm, where the diseased animals feed from the mangers and drink from the buckets 

 of the other horses, and palmed off' upon unsuspecting customers, who little know that 

 they are purchasing a deadly poison, which may cut oif their stock and themselves by a 

 most loathsome and painful disease. And in this State of New York our only redress 

 is by an action for damages against the vendor when the disease has wrought its dire 

 work upon man or beast. This is truly a deep stain on our civilization. At frequent 

 intervals over this region we find active centers of this dread disease, but are legally 

 helpless to apply any efficient check. (See my report on glanders, in Journal of New 

 York State Agricultural Society, July, 1869.) 



Ca7iine tnadness belongs to tlie same terrible list. Constantly fatal in its victims, 

 human and brute, it imperatively demands such measures as will obviate its genera- 

 tion and prevent its communication to man where it has been developed. 



Malignant anthrax, in all its numerous forms, is the third of this permanently obnox- 

 ious group. It appears in the most varied shapes, but mainly as " black quarter" and 

 splenic apoplexy ; attacks all animals without discrimination, and is fatal in a high de- 

 gree. In man it appears as malignant pustule and intestinal mycosis, which are no 

 less fatal than their congeries in the brute. Properly speaking, this is not a plague, but 

 is developed only in particular localities, propagated only by direct contact, and tends 

 to die out if removed from its native habitat. But it owns the most indestructible of 

 all known animal poisons, and once developed is liable to be preserved in groves, soils, 

 fodder, skins, hair, sheds, &c., for years, or even permanently. In an extended out- 

 break in Western New York, in which upwards of one hundred cattle and three men 

 suffered, the grounds, previously healthy, have retained the poison for over two years, 

 and continue to claim new victims at intervals. The hay from such infected soil will 

 convey the disease to a distance, and hides, hair, and horns have often convoyed it to 

 man after they had been carried half way round the world. This disease, or group of 

 diseases, therefore, though limited in their power of extension, are suitable suVijects for 

 legislative control. 



Tuberculosis. — The fourth in this homicidal list is tuberculosis or consumption. That 

 this is communicable by inoculation, or by feeding the discharges from tiie softened 

 diseased masses, no longer admits of doubt. Tiie experiments of Klebs, Chauveau, 



S. Ex. 35 10 



