30 The Lung Plague of Cattle. 



tagious nature of the affection in this case, Mr. K., her 

 neighbor, who had visited and handled her first sick cow, 

 has since lost one out of his herd of eleven, with unequiv- 

 ocal symptoms and lesions. 



P. Contagion through Infected Pastures. — It is to an ex- 

 ample of this medium of contagion that Australia owes 

 her present bovine lung pestilence. In 1859 a short-horn 

 cow was imported by Mr. Boodle from England into Mel- 

 bourne, and was found to be affected with the lung plague. 

 All of Mr. Boodle's cattle were killed and paid for by pri- 

 vate subscription ; his farm was then quarantined, 

 and the colonists fondly hoped that the danger had been 

 averted. It happened, however, that a teamster who 

 worked his ox-teams on the streets during the day, turned 

 them into these proscribed pastures at night under cover 

 of the darkness, and when later these animals perished, 

 they had already infected large numbers belonging to dif- 

 ferent herds and districts. What was thus begun by the 

 cupidity of the teamster, was repeated again and again in 

 quick succession, and on every side, for the herds of dif- 

 ferent owners roamed at large on the unfenced pastures, 

 the healthy grazed where the sick and infected had pre- 

 ceded them, and soon the greater part of that immense 

 island-continent lay in the grasp of the relentless pest. 



This method is a fruitful source of infection around our 

 cities and villages. The cattle of different owners are 

 turned out in summer on the commons and unbuilt lots 

 of the city and suburbs; and even if herded by an attend- 

 ant or staked on a given spot, they go in successive days 

 on places where infected stock have been before them, 

 and inhale the deadly contagium, from which the owner 

 thinks he has been carefully guarding them. 



Wherever the practice of pasturing the cattle of differ- 

 ent owners on unfenced lots is allowed, the work of ex- 

 terminating the disease is most seriously retarded, if noi 

 rendered altogether futile, the expense to the State is in- 



