330 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. 



our cattle are frequently doctored by those whose ignorance 

 is only measured by the materia medica which they employ. 

 It is not a little surprising in this age of medical improve- 

 ment, that men will allow their sick animals to be treated 

 with almost every conceivable nostrum, though worthless, 

 filthy, and even unheard of in the dark ages of the healing art. 



Thus it behooves us to nurture this important calling on 

 every hand ; for we know not how soon some foreign plague 

 may actually be implanted upon our unguarded shores. You 

 have seen the havoc which pleuro-pneumonia produces in a 

 forming community. And no language of mine can forestall 

 the importance, or thus more vividly impress upon your 

 minds the absolute necessity of enforcing strict quarantine 

 regulations to curtail the invasion of the same when it appears 

 in the epizootic form. For you have had a sad and tedious 

 experience on different occasions in trying to extirpate this 

 bovine pestilence. From its first introduction here, in 1842, 

 we have never been entirely free from its local outbreaks ; 

 and the ravages of this disease in the aggregate have already 

 caused an immense sacrifice of live-stock property. It still 

 exists, and as its latent germs are now very widely sown, we 

 frequently see its local manifestations in various parts of the 

 country. And, as its period of incubation is so uncertain, 

 there are fears of its becoming naturalized, as it were, u^Don 

 our virgin soil. This perhaps may serve to explain why 

 it breaks out upon us so unawares, and thus becomes so diffi- 

 cult to eradicate or control. Hence, you see the importance 

 of educating our people in the principles of veterinary science, 

 that we may be prepared to baffle this contagious malady 

 whenever it may occur. 



But there are other diseases of the bovine race of far more 

 malignant character, among which we would mention charbon, 

 splenic apoplexy and milk fever, so called. The first is quite 

 prevalent, and is known, professionally, as carbuncular ery- 

 sipelas or "blackleg," in common parlance. In this whole 

 class of anthrax diseases there is a septic poison, though not 

 strictly speaking, contagious, but which if inoculated into the 

 blood of man, either directly from the meat or from eating 

 the same in a comparatively raw state, produces a fearful 

 malady, knoM^ as malignant pustule, which we have before 



