^88 Veterinary Medicine. 



(Wilkinson). Similar experiences were had in all the middle 

 states up to the war of 1861, but, in too many cases, the real source 

 of infection was overlooked. It was observed that the disease 

 was confined to the vicinity of the main highways and drove 

 roads running north, and spared the lands lying somewhat back 

 of these routes. Attention was drawn to the Texas cattle in 

 1853 when a herd of 450 which had wintered in Jasper Co., Mo. 

 moved north passing through Vernon Co. in June, and causing 

 losses of 50 to 90 percent, of the native cattle along their course, 

 and only along that line. Such invasions occurred yearly, and in 

 1858 $200,000 worth of native cattle perished from this cause in 

 Vernon Co. alone T A. Badger). During the war (1861-64) the 

 cattle, in Texas especially, encreased without meeting with an 

 adequate market, and, on the opening of the trade once more, 

 they were sent north in large numbers carrying infection with 

 them. When Forts vSmith and Gibson had been occupied by the 

 Union soldiers, the southern cattle poured in along the military 

 road and the Kansas farmers along this route suffered severe 

 losses, as well as those to whom the southern cattle were finally 

 distributed (Bray). 



Causes. Up to 1889 the true cause of Texas fever was un- 

 known. It was well established that cattle brought from the low- 

 lands of the southern states, during the warm season, thorigh 

 themselves in apparently the best of health, proved deadly to 

 northern cattle with which they came in contact, to those that 

 followed them in the same pasture during the same warm season, 

 and even in many cases to the mountain cattle of the south. In 

 the same way northern cattle, removed to the infected regions in 

 the south, contracted the fever and almost all perished. This 

 was equally true of cattle taken from the northern states to 

 Jamaica or other islands in the Gulf. In the winter season, after 

 the first severe frosts of autumn and before the last keen frosts of 

 spring, the southern cattle could be safely introduced into the 

 northern states and on this a modus vivendi, ,for a trade in 

 southern cattle in the winter only, was based. 



Microbiology. Piroplasma bigeminum : Apiosoma bigeniinum. 

 (Apios pear, geminus twin). In 1888 Starcovici discovered pyri- 

 form organisms (^Babesia bigeminuni) in the red blood-globules 

 of Roumanian cattle suffering from haemoglobinuria, and Babes, 



