WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE. 139 



boots, and that is left in the places where the healthy stock go. 

 Dogs have been known to carry it in the same way, and it is a 

 question whetlier rats do not do the same thing. Hence, with 

 the short period of incubation, and with this tenacity of the 

 virus, we have placed in our hands a very easy way of checking 

 it. Circumscri-be the diseased herds, allow no man or beast 

 to go near them, except the man who tends them, and do not 

 allow him to go to the healtliy stock unless he changes his 

 clothes and washes his hands w4lh carbolic acid or something of 

 that sort. Tlien he can do it with safety. 



The prevalence of the disease in New York, so far as at 

 present ascertained, has been mainly in Oneida and Dutcliess 

 Counties. It was imported into Oneida County from Canada 

 nearly a month ago. In Dutchess County it has appeared witliin 

 the last three weeks, and was brought tliere mainly by two herds, 

 brought by drovers from Albany, along *the Hudson River to 

 Poughkeepsie, and travelled across the country from Pough- 

 keepsie. Wherever the cattle of those herds have been scattered 

 they have carried the disease. Some of the cattle of tliose 

 herds have been traced to particular cars on tlie railroad. One 

 o£ those herds stood a week in yards two, three and four. 

 Avenue F, at Albany. Tlicy were brought, it is said, from 

 Micliigan. Some of them came from Canada. The question is 

 whether those herds were not themselves previously contam- 

 inated. 



Tlien we know where those cattle went to. Some of them 

 were taken from Albany to New Milford and Kent and other 

 places in Connecticut, and there the disease prevails more than 

 in Dutchess County. As far as I have learned, no attention 

 was paid to circumscribing tlie herds, so there is imminent dan- 

 ger of its being propagated from those animals. In Massachu- 

 setts, you must be in some danger. I believe that a great many 

 cattle come from Albany along this Boston and Albany line, 

 and the probability is, that it is being, at the present time, 

 introduced into different parts of the State. It will be for you 

 to consider what ought to be done under the circumstances. I 

 should certainly advise that the importation by the way of 

 Albany be at once discontinued, and the importation from 

 Canada subjected to a strict supervision. Shut your doors 

 against Connecticut, perhaps, until she can show a clean bill of 



