14 The Lung Plague of Cattle. 



1. Was the New York disease imported ? 



(a) From different old residents (including Wm. Ged- 

 des, of Brooklyn, and Hugli T. Meakim, of Flushing) 

 who were in the milk business in Brooklyn at the time ol 

 the importation the following facts have been obtained. 



The first diseased cow was introduced from England 

 on the ship " "Washington," in 1843, and was purchased 

 by Peter Dunn, a milkman, who kept his cows in a sta- 

 ble near South Ferry. This cow soon sickened and died, 

 and infected the rest of his cows. From this the disease 

 was speedily conveyed into the great distillery stables of 

 John D. Minton, at the foot of Fourth street, and into the 

 Skillman street stables, Brooklyn, through which my in- 

 formant, Fletcher, showed the Massachusetts Commis- 

 sion in 1862. In this long period of nineteen years the 

 plague had prevailed uninterruptedly in these Skillman 

 street stables, and the Commission reported that they 

 "found some sick with the acute disease," and having 

 killed and examined one in the last stages of the affec- 

 tion, stated that it " showed a typical case of the same 

 malady which existed in Massachusetts." 



As dealers found it profitable to purchase cheap cows 

 out of infected herds and retail them at a sound price, 

 the malady was soon spread over Brooklyn and New 

 York city. One or two cases will enable us to trace one 

 unbroken chain of infection down to the present time. 



(b) In 1849 Wm. Meakim, of Bushwick, L. I., kept a 

 large dairy, and employed a man with a yoke of oxen in 

 drawing grains from the New York and Brooklyn distill- 

 eries. A milkman on the way who had lung fever in his 

 heard, persuaded the man to use his oxen in drawing a 

 dead cow out of his stable. Soon after the oxen sicken- 

 ed and died ; and the disease extending to his dairy cows, 

 Mr. Meakim lost forty head in the short space of three 

 months. The stables having thus become infected, Mr. 

 M. continued to lose from six to ten cows yearly for the 



