SECRETARY'S REPORT. 33 



execution of it. Such cases if hereafter brought to tlie atten- 

 tion of the legislature will, it is not doubted, receive the con- 

 sideratioa to which they may be entitled. 



The Commissioners cannot dismiss the subject now before 

 them without referring to the reports that have been frequently 

 circulated of the existence of pleuro-pneumonia in other places 

 than those already specified. These reports they regard as 

 entirely erroneous. They do not believe that a single case has 

 occurred in New England not connected with the herd of Mr. 

 Chenery. Their reasons for this opinion are first, that from 

 an examination of many of the reported cases, and from the 

 description of others, they arc fully satisfied they are of an 

 entirely different character. Those at Farmington, Connecticut, 

 for example, were generally supposed to be cases of the genuine 

 disease ; but Dr. Warren Tyler of North Brookfield, who has 

 probably seen as many cases of the real pleuro-pneumonia as 

 any man in this country, and who visited Farmington in 

 company with Mr. Commissioner Lathrop, at the request of 

 the commissioners of the State of Connecticut, became fully 

 convinced by careful post mortem examination, that they were 

 not the exudative pleuro-pneumonia. Another reason for 

 disbelief in the genuineness of these, is, that in no instance, so 

 far as known have they proved contagious. They have been 

 sporadic cases, in different parts of this and the adjoining- 

 States. So far as known to the Commissioners they resemble 

 each other in their developments ; but none of them answer to 

 the disease imported by Mr. Chenery. 



The case of an ox belonging to Mr. Hubbard Peckham of 

 Petersham, was one of the most extraordinary. The animal 

 was not known to have been exposed to contagion. First 

 symptoms of disease appeared April first. Was seized during 

 a stormy day grating his teeth, afterwards frothing at the 

 mouth, and at times coughing badly. The first attack lasted 

 three days, continued to work, although he did not fill himself, 

 until the twentieth of May ; after that time he declined, though 

 somtimcs better. On the twentieth of July at the close of a 

 hot day was much worse, and continued sick until the twenty- 

 third, when he was killed by his owner. 



His lungs were found to be a mass of disease, no part being 

 sound. The whole weighed sixty-four pounds, being filled with 



