490 VETEEINAEY HYGIENE 



Animals with foot and mouth disease may infect the 

 whole of the road they are driven over, and the pastures 

 they have been on ; the virus may be carried from one end 

 of the county to the other by even non-ruminant animals, 

 by fodder, and other inanimate bodies. 



Swine fever is spread broadcast by the evacuations of the 

 disease, through human agency, dogs, and food and water 

 soiled by the excreta of the affected. 



These points are only mentioned as bearing on the defini- 

 tion of in-contact, and showing how wide it may be in some 

 diseases, and how restricted the term may be in others. 



Markets and Fairs. — In connection with this may be 

 considered the holding of fairs and markets, which, it is 

 obvious, excepting under the most rigid precautionary 

 measures, may be centres for distributing disease. 



Taking once more swine fever, no reasonable person can 

 doubt the influence of markets in spreading the disease 

 broadcast, bearing in mind that pigs may be affected and 

 show little if any sign of ill-health, or only such signs of 

 the affection in a chronic form, that there is nothing suffi- 

 ciently diagnostic to certify to. 



There is nothing to prevent these swine finding their 

 way into a market, and infecting every place they are taken 

 to ; and, in addition, the farmer, pig dealer, and others, 

 leave the market for their homes with all the needful virus 

 on their boots, clothes, and hands, for starting fresh centres 

 or renewed outbreaks. 



Here again the Central Authority should come in, and 

 only under the most rigid conditions should pig markets 

 be sanctioned if the disease is to be stamped out. The 

 same reasoning applies to many other diseases. 



CATTLE PLAGUE. 



It is unnecessary to refer again to the history of this 

 disease in Great Britain. The first outbreak caused the 

 death of 400,000 cattle, and took nearly two years to exter- 

 minate as no veterinary machinery existed. The second 



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