38 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



conviction to tlie minds of the common people where it occurred, of the 

 contagious character of the disease, without asking men of science their 

 opinion. A pair of cattle in North Brookfield, in working condition, 

 from an infected herd, were put into a team of twenty-tliree yoke and 

 were thus employed a day and a half in moving a building, the cattle 

 composing this large team, belonging to thirteen owners ; when the work 

 was done and the team discharged, the disease was carried into thirteen 

 different herds — every animal exposed to the diseased yoke taking the 

 infection and carrying the disease to their respective herds. No satisfac- 

 tory explanation of the virulence of the contagion in this disease of the 

 horned cattle far exceeding any thing known in the human subject can 

 be offered, unless it be in the fact that the seat of the disease being in 

 the structure of the lungs, every expiration of the animal surcharged 

 with the contagious miasma must so load the atmosphere witli the infec- 

 tion as to impress every animal tliat inhales it. Yv^e admit this has 

 no parallel in the human subject, neither has the disease in its patho- 

 logical character. In pneumonias in the human subject the vesicular 

 structure of ^|e lungs is unquestionably the proper seat of the disease, 

 but in hoi'ned cattle the interlobular cellular tissue is the part primarily 

 and mainly affected, and the cellular tissue is secondly so, and then only 

 is it observed when the disease in the interlobular tissue is far advanced. 



In this opinion of the contagious character of the disease, your com- 

 mission is assured they are sustained by practical men, men of science 

 and editors of agricultural journals in Europe, where the more extended 

 prevalence of the disease has invited to more thorough investigation than 

 has been enjoyed here. 



Should any opinion be asked as to the economy of a course to be pur- 

 sued on the appearance of the disease, we would advise an immediate 

 separation of the sick animals from the remainder of the herd, rigidly 

 confining them to sheds or pens, removed at a considerable distance from 

 the other animals on the farm, and an isolation of all that may have 

 been exposed to the infection, till the danger has passed. Our only 

 safety at present seems to be in isolating the different members of an 

 infected herd. The vastness of the interests at stake may make it the 

 part of wisdom to secure most certainly, in all cases, the rigid observ- 

 ance of this practice by legislative enactments in this State similar to 

 what has been had in some other States. 



The Commissioners are liappy to be able to acknowledge the 

 services rendered them by the Massachusetts State Board of 

 Agriculture. Its secretary, Charles L. Flint, Esq., w^as found 

 ready at all times to afford any assistance and encouragement 



