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THE SOUTH EM N PLANTER. 



them during winter with sound cattle, which 

 afterwards enjoyed perfect freedom from dis- 

 temper. After knowing this to be repeatedly 

 done with safety, I cut off a portion of an in- 

 fected farm in winter, procuring sound cattle, 

 and pasturing them on this secluded portion 

 of land, with perfect immunity from the dis- 

 ease. Here now is another step of progress, 

 and fair ground for another inference : That 

 however much land may have been infected in 

 summer, it will be cleansed by the influence of 

 winter. Well, we have seen that the disease 

 is not induced by propinquity to the diseased 

 and the dead ; we have seen that sound cattle 

 may safely graze on land on which no distem- 

 pered cattle, nor such as have been distem- 

 pered, have grazed, during the same summer. 

 Where, then, shall we look for the cause of 

 infection ? With the further fact fully known 

 and believed, the conclusion, as a third infer- 

 ence, seems almost irresistibly forced upon us, 

 namely, That the taint of infection is imbibed 

 by their taking the saliva of tainted cattle into 

 their mouths, from the grass on which they 

 have mutually grazed, or licking themselves 

 with their tongues after having been licked by 

 such cattle. The law of nature, fully believed, 

 in other matters, is, that she is economical in 

 the use of means, and chooses to adopt but 

 one mode of effecting the same object. Now, 

 if the disease be certainly induced by taking 

 tainted saliva into the mouth, it seems hardly 

 rational, when no other mode of infection has 

 been discovered, to be still searching for one, 

 or to adopt the old notion of the superstitious 

 regarding murrain, that it was all the malig- 

 nant work of fairies and witches. 



We have drawn long ago the three follow- 

 ing inferences, which, in so far as our slight 

 experience immediately before our removal 

 from a distempered region could do so, were 

 supported by it. 1st, The distemper is not 

 communicated by proximity, however close, to 

 tainted cattle. 2d. The ground cannot be 

 permanently poisoned by such taint, but is dis- 

 infected as soon as time is allowed for the sa- 

 liva of the tainted to be cleansed from the 

 grass, by the rains, snows and frosts of winter. 

 3d. This malady is contracted by sound ani- 

 mals taking tainted saliva into their mouths, 

 and in no other way. We have a fact, per- 

 fectly analogous, regarding the distemper 

 among horses. A distempered horse may 

 travel daily by the side of a sound one, or he 

 may stand day and night, in an adjacent stall, 

 without communicating his disease. But if 

 he eat from the same manger, wear the same 

 bridle, or if in any other way his saliva gets 

 into the mouth of the sound horse, the disease 



is certainly contracted. If asked, why? We 

 reply, "nature has so ordained." Further, a 

 horse, which has apparently recovered from 

 the disease called " glanders," will infect every 

 horse into whose mouth his saliva may get. 

 If asked, why ? we give the same answer. 



Satisfactory as the foregoing deductions 

 were to the writer, he has found it difficult to 

 induce his friends to ponder and carry them 

 out practically. In his own experience, he 

 was resolved to test their truth, and endeavor 

 to ascertain whether a distempered farm might 

 not be purified from the pest by pursuing their 

 indications. But his experiment and further 

 intercourse with the disease were both inter- 

 rupted by his removal to Cumberland. 



The unequivocal establishment of our third 

 inference is so important, that we must beg leave 

 to dwell a little longer on the laws of contagion 

 controlling the spread of this disease. The best 

 confirmation of a doctrine of such a character 

 is generally that deduced from facts. A gen- 

 tleman possessing a large herd of cattle, 

 finding that some infected animals, having 

 been "distempered several years previously, 

 had made an irruption into his pasture, and 

 some of his cattle contracted the disease, or- 

 dered that all the sufferers be put into a well 

 enclosed lot, and that they should never come 

 out of it alive. Most of them died, and, 

 being a law-abiding man, he buried them — 

 very uselessly, except to show a temper of 

 obedience to law — six feet deep, unskinned. 

 The remainder of his cattle were very closely 

 watched, that if any symptoms of disease ap- 

 peared, they might forthwith be transferred to 

 the lot of diseased stock. The few which re- 

 covered were fattened and killed in the lot for 

 beef. There was no more distemper on his 

 farm afterwards. No man, familiar with the 

 disease, can doubt but there would have been, 

 had the cattle which recovered been permitted 

 to live, and graze among the untainted. 

 Another gentleman, who had long enjoyed ex- 

 emption from the disease among his stock, al- 

 though surrounded by neighbors with distem- 

 pered cattle, saw at a distance a lawless man 

 ride through and leave down the fence sepa- 

 rating his pasture from perhaps the worst 

 poisoned commons I ever knew. In a few 

 days he lost every cow he had — about twenty 

 -^-although the cows were driven back with 

 all practicable dispatch, and had not progressed 

 more than fifty yards into the commons. 

 When asking, why such cattle never took the 

 distemper before? I have been answered, 

 " Why, Sir, the ground in their pasture was 

 not poisoned." I could only answer back, 

 "What poison could they get on the com- 



