214 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE 



the investigation necessary to satisfy Dr. Holcombe, who had just been 

 appointed State veterinarian, was such as to require much more time 

 than I could give to it. I accordingly visited Kirksville, Mo., by your 

 direction, where I found an outbreak of the same disease as existed at 

 Neosho Falls, and from there returned to Washington. 



In Kansas I met Professor Stalker, ot Iowa, Professor Faville, of Col- 

 orado, Colonel Groom, of Texas, and Ik-. Hopkins, of Wyoming, who 

 had been commissioned by their respective States to report on the nat- 

 ure of the disease and the necessity of quarantining all cattle, sheep, 

 and pigs from Kansas. I was also requested by the secretary of the 

 Illinois State board of health to inform him if there was any necessity 

 for his State to adopt similar measures. Fortunately, each of these 

 States received a report that foot-and-mouth disease did not exist in 

 Kansas, and what threatened to be an almost complete suspension ot 

 the live-stock business of the West was averted. There is no doubt, 

 however, that the cattle industry suffered a considerable loss from the 

 excitement. The market became unsteady, the price of cattle declined, 

 and buyers became exceedingly cautious. 



April 9 I received information that Dr. McEachran, principal of the 

 Montreal veterinary school and live-stock inspector for Canada, had vis- 

 ited Neosho Falls, Kans., and Effingham, 111., as the representative ot 

 the Canadian Government, and positively asserted that the malady at 

 both places was the real foot-and-mouth disease of Europe. April 10, 

 a telegram from the State agent for Kansas of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture conveyed the information that the State vet- 

 erinarian had just reprted to the governor that six healthy cattle co- 

 habited with the sick animals had all contracted the disease, and that 

 further experiments by inoculation would at once be made. A letter 

 from the governor of the same date, received two days later, contained 

 similar statements. A few days later still an item appeared in the press 

 dispatches from Washington, stating that "a private dispatch was re- 

 ceived here to day from the governor of Kansas, saying that cases of 

 sickness among cattle which had been most carefully examined had 

 turned out to be true foot-and-mouth disease. He was afraid that 

 some cases had got in the herds. There was an attempt made at first 

 to keep the matter quiet, but the information was deemed such as should 

 go to the public." 



It now seemed that a repetition of the former excitement and panic 

 was about to occur, and by your direction I visited Kansas a second time 

 with instructions to make such experiments as might be necessary to 

 demonstrate the non-contagious nature of the disease beyond question. 

 I reached Emporia April 20, and was there met by a telegram from Ne- 

 osho Palis asking me to join the State veterinarian and Professor Law 

 at the governor's office on the morning of the 22d. Xot intending to 

 turn backward until the difference of opinion was conclusively settled, 

 I telegraphed in reply requesting these gentlemen to meet me at Em- 

 poria on their way to Topeka. This they did on March 21, and I had a 

 conference with them, at which the State A^eterinarian admitted that all 

 attempts to convey the disease by inoculation upon cattle, rabbits, and 

 sheep had failed ; that the second experimental lot of cattle which 

 had cohabited with the first lot when they were supposed to be suffer- 

 ing with foot-and-mouth disease had not been in the least affected ; 

 that the foot symptoms of the first lot had only been noticed with two 

 animals, were very slight and of exceedingly short duration ; and that, 

 finally, whatever the disease might be, it was not the continental foot- 

 and-mouth disease. 



