26 The Lung Plague of Cattle. 



1. In the winter of 1847-8 infected oxen were unwit- 

 tingly purchased to be fed on the farm of Pitcox, East 

 Lotliian, Scotland. The disease spread through the 

 whole herd, causing most extensive losses. The cattle- 

 man on the farm was the son of the steward on the neigh- 

 boring farm of Pleasants. The buildings and feeding- 

 courts on the one farm were about a mile and a half 

 apart from those on the other, and at the season named 

 the cattle on the two places were closely confined in their 

 respective yards. The man attending the sick cattle on 

 Pilcox paid a weekly Sunday visit to his parents at The 

 Pleasants, and never failed on such occasions to go in to 

 see how his father's cow was doing. In the course of a 

 few weeks the father's cow contracted the plague, and 

 from her the malady spread to all the cattle on the farm, 

 entailing heavy losses on the owner. 



Here the cow first attacked on The Pleasants was not 

 an animal that had been recently introduced, for her owner 

 had been steward under the former tenant several years 

 before and had staid on under the new tenant, keeping 

 the same cow throughout. A bull was kept on the farm, 

 so that his cow was never taken from the premises. 

 There was no plague in the district prior to the outbreak 

 at Pitcox. The new tenant's own cows had never been 

 sick, had all been a year or more in the place before the 

 plague broke out, and were kept in a stable at the oppo- 

 site side of the farm buildings, and about fifty paces from 

 where the steward's coav stood in a stable alone. Infec- 

 tion from that source was, therefore, out of the question. 

 Finally the feeding bullocks on The Pleasants were black 

 West Highland cattle, from a race and locaUty in which 

 this disease had never prevailed ; they came on the place 

 in sound health, and remained more than long enough, 

 before contracting the disease, to have developed the 

 symptoms of it had they brought the germs in their sys- 

 tems ; they maintained excellent health until weeks after 



