The Lung Plague of Cattle. 



Hague to an Irish friend. In Ireland it met with the 

 most favorable conditions for its propagation, the great 

 mass of' the young store cattle having been in the habit of 

 changing hands and pastures several times a year, of 

 passing on each occasion through public markets where 

 they mingled with herds from all quarters, and of being 

 transferred after every sale to common pastures where 

 the cattle of different owners are turned out together at 

 so much per head. (See Prof. Ferguson's Eeport to The 

 Privy Council, 1878.) In two years the whole island was 

 infected, and diseased stock were being exported to the 

 adjacent island of Great Britain. The following year the 

 Free Trade Act was passed, and immediately Great Brit- 

 ain was deluged with a steady influx of infected cattle 

 from HoUand, Belgium and France on the one side, and 

 from Ireland on the other. Since that period England 

 has been ravaged continually, excepting only in those 

 districts (the Highlands) which breed their own cattle 

 and never admit strange stock. The yearly losses from 

 this plague alone have been no less than $10,000,000 per 

 annum. (Gamgee). 



From England the plague was carried back to the Con- 

 tinent, infecting at different times the more northern 

 countries of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Schleswig-Hol- 

 stein, Oldenburg and Mecklenburg-Schwerin ; also to the 

 more distant lands of Long Island in 1843 and 1850, to 

 New Jersey in 1847, and to Austraha in 1858. 



From Holland it was conveyed in the systems of in- 

 fected cattle to the Cape of Good Hope in 1854, and to 

 Massachusetts in 1859. 



The introduction of the disease into the more distant 

 countries has been so fruitful in evH results that it de- 

 mands to be noticed in greater detail. 



Into Brooklyn, Long Island, it was introduced in 1843 

 in the system of a ship cow, purchased by Peter Duni) 

 from the captain of an English vessel. From Duun's 



