64 The Lung Plague of Cattle. 



of progeny, of loss of fodder no longer safe to feed to 

 cattle, of diminished harvests for lack of cultivation and 

 manure, of quarantine and separate attendants wherever 

 new stock is brought on a farm, of cleansing and disin- 

 fection of sheds and buildings, etc., which become abso- 

 lutely essential in the circumstances. 



"We do not include the expense of supervising the 

 trade, examining and quarantining the stock at the front- 

 ier of every State, and of the disinfection of cars, load- 

 ing-banks, stock-yards and markets. If such were re- 

 sorted to, after an extensive infection of our "Western 

 herds by lung fever, the cattle trade would be virtually 

 stopped. Thus a safe quarantine for store cattle of not 

 less than three months would be absolutely essential. 

 Then the quarantine yards and sheds would be continual 

 centres of infection, and would require to be very exten- 

 sive, thoroughly isolated from each other, and constanth' 

 and perfectly disinfected, the air as well as the solids, to 

 prevent the infection of newly-arrived stock. Such an 

 incubus upon the trade would amount to a virtual prohi- 

 bition. In rinderpest, sheep-pox, and aphthous fever, 

 quarantine is a comparatively simple and available ex- 

 pedient, as the disease shows itself within a week ; but, 

 in lung fever, with the germs lying unsuspected in the 

 system for one or two months, a protective ' quarantine is 

 practically impossible wherever an active cattle trade is 

 carried on. Hence in the countries of Central and West- 

 em Europe, through which the active traffic from the 

 East is carried on, a complete control is usually main- 

 tained over rinderpest and sheep-pox, while the people 

 have resigned themselves to the prevalence of lung fever 

 as an unavoidable infliction. The same holds in Great 

 Britain. Twice within eleven years has she crushed out 

 invasions of rinderpest, and repeatedly has the same 

 thing been accomplished for sheep- pox; but the lung 

 fever is accepted as a necessary evil, between which and 

 her large importations of continental cattle she must 

 make a deliberate choice. 



" Happily, in these United States, we are as yet under 

 no such compulsion. The lung fever on American soil is 

 still confined to the Eastern States and to inclosed farms, 

 from which it is quite possible to eradicate it thoroughly 



