386 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



be placed under quarantine, with an inspector appointed to keep the 

 premises under constant surveillance. 



This method of quarantine alone, while very satisfactory in many 

 instances, is rather tardy in obtaining the desired result. For this 

 reason when the disease breaks out in a country like the United 

 States, where the contagion is likely to spread rapidly by means of 

 infected cars, manure, hay, and other feed, and where the loss attend- 

 ant upon its obtaining a firm foothold would result so disastrously, it 

 seems that this method of temporizing is rather tedious, and more 

 radical steps are required in order to suppress and eradicate completely 

 the infection in the quickest and most thorough manner possible. 



It would therefore appear better to concentrate the expense incident 

 to the extermination of foot-and-mouth disease by purchasing and 

 slaughtering all affected and exposed cattle after judicious appraise- 

 ment. The carcasses of these animals should be totally destroyed, 

 preferably by cremation, or otherwise by burying them in a hole six 

 feet deep and covering them with air-slaked lime. The infected stable 

 should be disinfected by thoroughly cleaning it, scrubbing the floor 

 with hot water, brushing down all loose dust from the walls, and tear- 

 ing off all woodwork which is partly decayed. Then the whole interior 

 of the stable should be covered with a good coat of limewash contain- 

 ing 1 part of a 40 per cent solution of formaldehyde (which is sold 

 by the drug trade under the commercial name of formalin) to 30 parts 

 of the limewash, or four ounces of formalin to each gallon of lime- 

 wash. Another efficient wash for this purpose may be prepared by 

 adding 6 ounces of chlorid of lime to each gallon of limewash. All 

 stable utensils should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected by the 

 application of a solution containing 4 ounces of formalin to a gallon 

 of water, or 6 ounces of crude carbolic acid to each gallon of water. 

 The manure should be burned or spread over ground (other than 

 meadow land) that is to be turned under. No other cattle should be 

 purchased for at least thirty days after the complete disinfection of the 

 premises. 



The method of eradicating the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease 

 in New England in 1902-3 consisted in the rigid quarantine of all 

 infected premises and of the animals upon them, in slaughtering the 

 diseased and exposed animals at the earliest practicable moment, and 

 in thoroughly disinfecting the stables and the contents of the build- 

 ings in which they had been sheltered. The progress of this work, 

 the confinement of the disease to four of the New England States, and 

 its complete eradication in a comparatively short time demonstrate 

 in a striking manner the efficacy of slaughtering and the futility of 

 relying upon quarantine alone in stamping out the disease. 



Inoculation has been adopted in some countries in order to have 

 the disease spread quickly through the herds, and while this practice 

 has undoubted value where the disease is indigenous, it is not desirable 

 in this country and should not be adopted. 



