56 The Lung Plague of Cattli 



be ruinDTis to import, even if sound. A similar welcoma 

 is extended, by implication, to all those ruminants which 

 are devoted more particularly to luxury, and have not 

 been degraded to such vulgar utilitarian objects as the 

 production of meat or wool. Yet all ruminants are sub- 

 ject to rinderpest, and this malady was carried to France 

 in 1866 by two gazelles, as other plagues have often been 

 carried to new countries by the privileged blooded stock. 



"But we started out to notice a danger which is no 

 longer separated from us by the broad barrier of the At- 

 lantic, and whose malign presence is not to be dismissed 

 by any one of ten thousand contingencies, as is the case 

 with the possible advent of the rinderpest. This danger 

 stands in our midst, and is steadily gaining in force as it 

 encroaches further and further, showing how certain it 

 is, if unchecked, to lay the whole country under contri- 

 bution, and inflict most disastrous and permanent losses. 

 The lung fever of cattle, imported into Brooklyn, L. I., 

 for the first time, in 1843, in a European cow, has never 

 since been at any time entirely absent from our soil. From 

 this center it has slowly and irregularly extended over a 

 portion of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mary- 

 land, Delaware and Virginia, besides having repeatedly 

 invaded Connecticut. The slowness of its extension has 

 begotten a false sense of security, and no real apprehen- 

 sions of serious consequences remain from an animal 

 poison which has been for over a third of a century hid- 

 den away in the near vicinity of the Atlantic coast. 



"To disturb this comfortable and restful condition of 

 the public mind is an unpleasant task, which nothing but 

 the imperative sense of duty would compel us to under- 

 take. But this disease has a history, which we can only 

 ignore at our peril ; and as its records can now be drawn 

 from all quarters of the globe, we can have before us an 

 unequivocal testimony as to what will inevitably happen 

 under given conditions of climate, surroundings and 

 treatment. 



"England imported the lung fever of cattle in 1842, just 

 one year before we did, was soon very generally infected, 

 and has continued so to the present time. Up to 1869 

 it is estimated that England had lost, almost exclusively 

 from this disease, 5,549,780 head of cattle, worth £83,- 



