374 DISEASES OP CATTLE. 



contagion, there is no possibility of an animal becoming affected with 

 it unless it has been exposed. If, therefore, pleuro-pneumonia exists 

 in a locality the owner of healthy cattle should make every effort to 

 keep his animals from coming near those which are affected or near 

 any which have been exposed. He should be equally particular not 

 to allow any person who has been on the infected premises to visit 

 his own pastures, stables, or cattle. 



If pleuro-pneumonia breaks out in a herd every animal in that herd 

 should be slaughtered, the stables should be thoroughly cleaned and 

 disinfected, and no other cattle should be allowed on the premises 

 until a period of ninety days has elapsed. 



Medical treatment of affected animals is unavailing and should not 

 be attempted. No matter how valuable the diseased animals may have 

 been before they contracted the disease, they should at once be 

 destroyed and the contagion eradicated. This is the best policy for 

 the individual as well as for the community. 



The eradication of this disease by local or national governments can 

 only be successful when the same principles are adopted and carried 

 out as are here recommended for individual stables. It is then a diffi- 

 cult undertaking, simply because the contagion is generally widely dis- 

 seminated before any measures are adopted, and because a great 

 majority of cattle owners will never report the existence of the dis- 

 ease. Regulations must therefore be enforced which will insure the 

 prompt discovery of every herd in which the disease appears, as well 

 as the destruction of all diseased and exposed animals and the thor- 

 ough disinfection of the premises. 



To discover pleuro-pneumonia sufficiently early for this purpose, the 

 district supposed to be infected should be clearly defined and a suffi- 

 cient force of inspectors should be constantly employed to inspect 

 every herd in that district at least once in two weeks, or, better, once 

 a week. No bovine animal should be allowed to go out of the defined 

 district alive, and all which enter it should be carefully inspected to 

 iusure their freedom from disease. As an assistance to the discovery 

 of diseased herds, every animal which dies in the infected district 

 from any cause, and every animal which is slaughtered, even if appar- 

 ently in good health, should be the subject of a careful post-mortem 

 examination. Many affected herds will be found in this way. 



In addition to these measures it is also necessary to guard against 

 the removal of animals from one stable to another, and the mixing of 

 herds upon common pastures or in the public highways. The object 

 must be to isolate every individual's cattle as completely as possible, 

 or otherwise a single affected animal may infect a dozen or more herds. 

 To prevent surreptitious sale or trading of cattle, each animal must 

 in some way be numbered and recorded in the books kept by the offi- 

 cial in charge of the district. In the work of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture a numbered metal tag was fastened to 



