132 THE DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



page 87 lie says : " Nevertheless, there are important data which in- 

 dicate that, from the period of arrival of a Texan herd on any distant 

 or any defined pasture, jive to six weeks elapse 'before the disease ajp- 

 jpears in the indigenous stock, grazing icith or after Southern cattle. 

 It is proved that animals may simply pass leisurely over a road or 

 prairie, feeding as they move along, and, without remaining for any 

 length of time on any portion of the ground they traverse, leave he- 

 }iind them a poison suffi^cient to destroy all, or nearly all, the cattle 

 which continue to feed ujpon itP 



He then goes on to give cases illustrating this statement. 



On page 88, he says : " At Tolono the largest body of Texan 

 cattle arrived toward the end of May, and the disease broke out (in 

 the native stock) on the 27th of July. One gentleman of Tolono 

 gave accommodations one night to three hundred Texan steers, on 

 the 25th of June, and the disease appeared among his own stock on 

 the 28th of July. In Champaign County, Texan cattle were placed 

 on the prairie on the 15th of June, and the indigenous stock hegan 

 to die on the 3d of August, twenty out of thirty-eight head dying 

 in four days." 



" Thus we see that thirty to forty days elapse between the plac- 

 ing of Texan stock on a pasture, and the manifestation of the dis- 

 ease to the stock-owners of the neighborhood ^ 



If this is not being " infectious " in the extremest sense of the 

 term, and to the full letter of the law, then I admit my utter igno- 

 rance of the philosophical -use of language, and logical connection 

 between cause and effect. 



Still further, page 109, Gamgee says : " Near Homer, where 

 there were 4,527 Texan steers, which had been driven to Broad- 

 lands, and had communicated disease not only to cattle feeding on 

 their trail, but also to a herd of Illinois cattle with which they 

 mixed in reaching their destination.'''' 



Page 110 : " That they " (the Texan cattle) " communicated the 

 disease to a very serious extent is beyond all doubt. ... At the 

 time of my visit the mortality (among native cattle infected by 

 Texans) was raging at its highest point, and men were busy from 

 sunrise to sunset, skinning, digging graves, and burying." 



The whole report is replete with such testimony. Further com- 

 ment on our part is unnecessary. 



If Professor John Gamgee does not consider the disease infec- 

 tious, the people of many of our "Western States seem to have come 

 to quite the contrary opinion, for, in the renowned Scotchman's own 

 words, page 121, " stringent laws have failed to avert the most dis- 



