SECRETARY'S REPORT. 25 



have said that the proposition to take counsel of experi- 

 enced medical men had met with no favor with the Board. 

 The only testimony I have therefore on this point is the opinion 

 of one who has had no little experience, and in whose 

 judgment I have that confidence which leads me to trust my 

 own and the life of my family to his skill, who gave it as his 

 opinion on an examination of one of the more thorouglily 

 diseased lungs we have taken from any animal, that there was 

 nothing about it that he should not expect to find in an acute 

 case of the lung fever. Let no one suppose that I offer this 

 opinion thinking it of much value ; for I do not even consider, 

 what is so often and triumphantly referred to, the opinions of 

 Tom, Dick, and Harry across the water, worth considering for 

 one moment, when we can for a tithe of the money which has 

 been expended by the Commissioners in a single year, by properly 

 conducted experiments place all the questions of interest in 

 relation to this disease, and its effects forever beyond the need of 

 an opinion. It is not many years since the whole medical faculty 

 of the old world stood aghast at the virulence of a disease which 

 to-day is but little feared by skilful medical men, either there or 

 here. Nor is it long since he would have been set down as a 

 simpleton who ventured the opinion that any one of many of 

 the diseases not now classed among contagious disorders, was 

 other than purely so. If it be proved that pleuro-pneumonia 

 never appeared in this country until Chenery brought it from 

 abroad, it does not follow that it is not now an epidemic. Nor 

 does it follow, by any means, that because the veterinary surgeons 

 of this country have found no remedy for the disease, therefore 

 it cannot be cured, and, that too, so readily as to make it the 

 part of folly to slaughter every herd in which it appears. Certain 

 it is to my mind that not twenty, nay, nor even a hundred 

 thousand dollars will drive tlie disease from this State if expended 

 in the manner it has heretofore been. 



Many times have I been warned against doing anything which 

 miglit jeopardize the farming interest of this State, or the health 

 of the people. I am a farmer, and what is more, one who believes 

 that whatever effects their welfare is of vital importance to the 

 Commonwealth, nor would I say one word which I believe could 

 possibly endanger the health of one of the humblest of our 

 citizens. But I can but think it necessary, that the whole truth 



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