No. 4.] CATTLE COMMISSIONERS. 513 



sioner of agriculture, and Mr. G. D. Flanders, assistant commis- 

 sioner, who detailed Dr. Wm. H. Kelly of Albany, N. Y., to 

 investigate the outbreak for the State. Saturday noon, October 2, 

 Dr. Kelly took me to see a patient in his private practice. A cow 

 owned by the Little Sisters of the Poor was lying nearly dead. 

 She was bought about ten days earlier at the West Albany stock 

 yards, but had been in the stable seven days. She was originally 

 owned by the Shaker Settlement near Albany, and had been 

 around the stock yards for three or four weeks. On the Thursday 

 preceding she had been taken violently ill with chills, and had 

 passed red water. This cow died that afternoon, and, by arrange- 

 ment made by Dr. Kelly, was post-mortemed at a rendering 

 establishment outside the city. 



This cow's muscles were bright, as if partially bled ; the lungs 

 were normal, excepting a small area in the posterior portion, 

 which was partially hepatized ; the heart was firmly contracted, 

 its muscles being quite pale ; the posterior mediastinal and the 

 left bronchial lymphatic glands contained a few one-fifth-inch 

 diameter caseous gritty foci of tubercular origin ; the spleen was 

 from three to four times enlarged, with the characteristic black- 

 berry-jam appearance on section ; liver much enlarged, with 

 decided yellowish cast ; gall bladder full, gall thickened ; intes- 

 tine with reddish or pinkish appearance ; kidneys very dark on 

 section ; bladder full of dark-red urine ; uterus, with black con- 

 tents, showing the animal to have calved recently. 



Cover-glass preparations made from the heart muscles yielded 

 the micro-organism of Texas fever to Dr. Frothingham, October 5. 

 Portions of the heart, liver, spleen, kidney and the entire bladder 

 were submitted to Dr. V. A. Moore, pathologist of New York 

 State Veterinary College, by Dr. Kelly, for examination. A close 

 inspection of the skin discovered a single female tick Boophilus 

 bovus, but little more than two weeks old. 



The known details of the transportation and of the outbreak of 

 Texas fever having been given, it becomes necessary to outline 

 the principal features of the scientific history of the disease, that 

 the two may be compared and a working theory advanced to dis- 

 cover the source of disease. This presentation is founded upon 

 the investigations of the scientific force of the United States 

 Bureau of Animal Industry, from 1886 to 1896, and various earlier 

 writers upon this subject. 



It has long been known that cattle from the south Atlantic sea- 

 board and Gulf coast States, though seemingly and actually 

 healthy, had the property of infecting the ground whenever driven 

 or transported into mountainous countries or the northern States, 



