BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



209 



admitted, and 3 sick cows had just been sold or exchanged. This number of sta- 

 bles comprises but a small part of those in the vicinity of Baltimore, but it is believed 

 that the number is sufficient to demonstrate the presence and dangerous character of 

 the disease. We have no information of pleuro-pneumonia in the country districts of 

 Maryland at any great distance from the cities. 



One or more herds near tho District of Columbia have recently lost a number of 

 cows, and at latest accounts had some sick. Within tho District, without making any 

 regular inspection, three infected herds have been found where from 3 to 6 animals 

 are admitted to have been lost withiu the year. In Virginia there are stables from 

 which animals have recently been lost with symptoms of this disease; but none of these 

 could be secured for examination, and therefore we can not be positive in regard to 

 the nature of the disease. 



REASONS FOR BELIEVING IT CONTAGIOUS. 



The first great reason for believing this to be contagious pleuro-pneumonia is the 

 fact that nowhere in the country outside of the comparatively small strip of territory 

 stretching from Connecticut to Virginia, and east of tho Alleghany Mountains, have 

 any cases been found which bear any close resemblance to the disease under consid- 

 eration. If this disease were the result of climatic causes, or if it were produced by 

 improper food and care, then we should certainly find it distributed over the whole 

 country, or at least in all of those parts of it where similar conditions exist. It can- 

 not be originated by the manner of stabling and feeding cows near our Eastern cities, 

 for substantially the same conditions exist at Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit 

 Chicago, Saint Louis, Cincinnati, and other Western cities, and no veterinarian has 

 been able to find any similar cases of disease there, although special inspection has 

 been made by competent persons. 



The disease is not confined to stable cows, however, nor to those seasons of the year 

 when acute lung diseases can be accounted for by the inclemency of the weather. 

 The outbreak referred to in Connecticut occurred in the summer, in a country district, 

 and where the cattle w r ere running upon nice pasture fields. The extensive outbreaks 

 in New Jersey and Pennsylvania also happened in summer, and were in the best farm- 

 ing districts of these States. 



In this connection attention is called to the fact that in the State of Pennsylvania 

 about ninety herds have been infected since March, 1879, and that notwithstanding 

 the appointment of special agents in every part of the State, and the investigation of 

 all cattle diseases wherever found, there was no disease resembling pleuro-pneumonia 

 discovered except in eight of the sixty-seven counties of that State. The remaining 

 fifty-nine counties have been free from any suspicion of this plague. What is even 

 more significant is the fact that these counties are not distributed over various parts 

 of the State, but that they join each other, and are all in the southeastern corner of 

 the State, where there is the greatest danger of infection by cattle brought from Phil- 

 adelphia and Baltimore. With seventeen of these herds the infection was traced to 

 cattle from Baltimore or other points in Maryland ; with twenty-one it was traced to 

 Philadelphia ; with ten it was traced to cattle from herds in Pennsylvania- Irnown to 

 be diseased. 



The most favorable conditions of life were not sufficient to protect the cattle where 

 this disease was introduced. I have already mentioned that a number of the out- 

 breaks referred to occurred during the summer, and that the animals were running 

 upon irreproachable pasture fields. Many of the affected cows were young and in fine 

 condition. In Connecticut a Jersey bull, less than two years old, and two steers fit 

 for beef, were among the victims. Again, the disease as we see it here does not occur 

 in isolated herds a single case at a time, as does non-infectious lung disease, but when 

 it enters a herd a majority of the cattle are affected sooner or later. Some of the 

 herds in Brooklyn and Baltimore have been losing cows from this plague for years, 

 and one near the latter city, where but about fifty cows were kept at a time, has lost 

 between 200 and 300 cows within three years. 



These instances, all recent, are referred to, not as all the evidence bearing on this 

 point, but simply as examples of what has been occurring for years past ; and it is 

 believed that they cannot be explained on any other hypothesis than the contagious- 

 ness of the disease. 



DANGER GREATER THAN EXTENT OF INFECTED TERRITORY AND NUMBER OF DISEASED 



ANIMALS WOULD INDICATE. 



Glancing oyer the territory which I have stated to be infected, it must be con- 

 fessed that it is not extensive — a single farm with perhaps five animals in Connecti- 

 cut, about four counties in New York, as many in New Jersey, two or three counties 

 in Maryland, and possibly a few stables in Delaware and Virginia. 

 14 A— 'S± 



