10 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the beef, &c., of the healthy animals, and applied in part payment 

 of the appraised value of the cattle. 



The conclusions to which the Commissioners have arrived 

 from their investigations the past year, are that if a herd of 

 cattle is surely exposed by being in contact with an animal in 

 the early stage of the disease, (as, for instance, in an ordinary 

 barn, as cattle are usually tied up,) slaughtering the herd and 

 selling the healthy for beef is the most economical mode of 

 treating it ; but if the exposure is doubtful, isolation, with care- 

 ful watching, should be resorted to. Facts, with the figures 

 to substantiate the above, can be produced, but it is thought 

 unnecessary. 



It is often asked, " Why kill the diseased ? Why not let 

 them recover ?" 



In answer, it is proper, first, to explain what recovery of the 

 disease called pleuro-pneumonia is. 



To illustrate : suppose, with one-half or two-thirds of one 

 lung solidified, the first effort of nature is to throw around the 

 diseased mass a covering of fibrinous material, entirely shutting 

 off the healthy tissue from the diseased, which is generally 

 accomplished in from fifteen to forty days. Suppuration then 

 commences on the surface of the diseased mass, which continues 

 until the whole is liquified ; absorption is constantly going on, 

 and in from six to twenty months the animal recovers, but with 

 the loss of a portion of a vital organ. If the animal is a work- 

 ing bullock, its value is destroyed ; if a cow in milk, after the 

 acute stage is passed, the secretation is partly restored, and the 

 milk consumed by the people. 



Would an intelligent and conscientious physician recommend 

 for a wet nurse a person with an abscess or abscesses in the lungs ? 

 If not, why is it not equally wrong to use the milk drawn from 

 cows with lungs in the same or a similar condition ? < 



Contagion. — In the first three herds to which the Commis- 

 sioners were called, it is not probable that contact with diseased 

 animals could be proved. Several months had elapsed since 

 the disease broke out, and as it was in a locality where it was 

 well known that the disease existed the year previous, it is not 

 strange that the efforts made to trace it failed. The statements 

 made to the Commissioners in relation to the outbreak and 



