118 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



Communicated through the Agricultural 

 Commissioner, and ordered to be published. 

 ON DISTEMPER AMONG CATTLE. 



There are some subjects intrinsically im- 

 portant, both as regards individual and public 

 interests, which, at the same time, are dry and 

 uninteresting. A man desirous of doing good 

 may feel himself called upon to communicate 

 to the public, observations, which his position 

 in life may have enabled him to make on such 

 matters, whilst he is oppressed with the 

 thought that the whole effort of writing may 

 be unpalatable to himself, and its result dis- 

 gusting to his readers, if any be found. Such 

 a writer has at least the consolation of re- 

 flecting, that although the path of duty may 

 often be steep and rugged, it is sound and 

 safe, and leads the persevering to destinations 

 where the flowery and delusive paths of plea- 

 sure never go. 



Apologies are generally unpleasant, except 

 to him making them ; but I must be permitted 

 to say, that I approach this dry and intricate 

 subject with no books within my reach to aid 

 me in the investigation. Although my per- 

 sonal acquaintance with the disease has been 

 expensive, in a great loss of cattle, it is far 

 from having been sufficiently extensive to au- 

 thorize me to take the position I now occupy, 

 if one more suitable could be found to per- 

 form the work. But I have promised that "I 

 will try." 



I will premise, that I have but little to offer 

 regarding the treatment and cure of this dis- 

 ease. Observing that a great majority of its 

 severer cases, and all that I ever saw with one 

 particular symptom — bloody urine — proved 

 fatal, I have thought it more important to in- 

 vestigate the laws of contagion, governing its 

 progress through the country, and, if possible, 

 to discover the means of prevention, than 

 vainly to search after the sanative treatment 

 of a disease so often incurable, and in which 

 the sufferers, before they were known to be 

 ill, had, to use a common phrase, been already 

 "struck for death." 



This disease made its appearance in Prince 

 Edward, my native county, nearly sixty years 

 ago. It was brought to within about two miles 

 of my father's residence, by a drove of cattle 

 from North Carolina, Many of this drove 

 died, and destruction among cattle was spread 

 all around. Great anxiety was excited through 

 that region, and observing men began to no- 

 tice the peculiarities of the disease. Unfor- 

 tunately, from ascertaining that all cattle took 

 the distemper which grazed on the grounds on 

 which the drove had been, and that other 

 grounds also were contaminated as the disease 



spread around, a notion sprung up that in some 

 strange way a permanent and immovable poi- 

 son was rooted in the ground. It is true that 

 the ground, or the grass on it, may become a 

 medium of conveyance to other cattle, and I 

 doubt whether even this step towards its de- 

 velopment would have been made in an old 

 and thickly settled country, where even the 

 intelligent had long looked upon its propaga- 

 tion as an inscrutable mystery — a matter like 

 the wind, which " bloweth where it listeth." 

 The writer hopes to explain how it is, that the 

 ground becomes a medium for its extension 

 among sound cattle, and to suggest means for 

 its entire abolishment from the country. I 

 moreover believe that in a new and sparsely 

 inhabited country, recently invaded by such a 

 plague, although there may be fewer cases for 

 investigating the causes of contagion, yet there 

 will be less liability to error from confounding 

 one cause with another, than where the num- 

 ber is so great that it is almost impossible to 

 trace to the right one. During the active 

 portion of my professional life, I almost en- 

 vied the city physicians their many opportu- 

 nities of scrutinizing into the laws of infec- 

 tious diseases. I have since been induced to 

 believe that these very abundant opportunities 

 lead sometimes into confusion and error. A 

 watchfully observant man, with cases " few 

 and far between," and not entangled amongst 

 a multiplicity of others, has a better opportu- 

 nity of making sure progress, although it may 

 be slow. 



There is strong probability, amounting al- 

 most to certainty, that this disease, in identity, 

 is really " the bloody murrain" of England 

 and Scotland. I have not access to books 

 affording such a diagnosis of murrain as will 

 enable me to identify them. The only detail 

 of symptoms in my possession of that Euro- 

 pean disease is given by Dr. Willich, in his 

 Domestic Encyclopedia; and from that is left 

 out the most threatening symptom of our dis- 

 ease called " distemper." I allude to bloody 

 urine. Dr. Willich says, "murrain is a con- 

 tagious disease, incident to cattle ; it is known 

 by the animals hanging down their heads, 

 which are swollen ; by short and hot breath- 

 ing ; palpitation of the heart ; staggering ; an 

 abundant secretion of viscid matter in the 

 eyes; rattling in the throat; and a shining 

 tongue." Most of these symptoms generally 

 occur in our distemper ; but the most unfail- 

 ing diagnostic, so uniformly accompanying the 

 disease that it deserves to be called, in medical 

 phrase, pathognomonic, that I have witnessed, 

 is a morbid appearance of the urine, which 

 either becomes bloody, or assumes a dark 



