Contagious Diseases of Live Stock. 
265 
succumbed to that disease, which was allowed to run its course 
not only without restriction, but fresh virus was repeatedly and 
uninterruptedly imported from foreign countries, through the 
medium of animals brought in with the object of meeting the 
food requirements of the increasing population of the country. 
The fact was entirely overlooked that the losses imposed by the 
diseases often far exceeded the value of the animals imported. 
That careful writer of bygone days, Youatt, in his treatise on 
The Breeds , Management , and Diseases of Cattle, published in 
1834 under the auspices of the Society for the Diffusion of 
Useful Knowledge, made no mention of foot-and-mouth disease, 
but related what he justly designated an interesting account 
of pleuro-pneumonia, written by M. Lecoq, a teacher in the 
Veterinary School of Lyons. Had his teaching been closely 
followed when the early outbreaks of the disease occurred in the 
United Kingdom, the waste of many millions of the nation’s 
wealth would have been avoided, and the sorrows inflicted upon 
the owners of stock in seeing their animals swept away by 
disease, against which they were powerless to guard, would at 
the same time have been averted. No rigid inquiry appears, 
however, to have been made into the first outbreaks ; neither 
was there any attempt to prohibit further importations of these 
malignant contagious and infectious diseases. 
It was unfortunate that Professor Simonds, in the same 
article that he wrote (Journal, Vol. XVIII., 1857, p. 201) upon 
the outbreak of sheep-pox, said, respecting foot-and-mouth 
disease and pleuro-pneumonia : — 
It is worthy of a passing remark that neither of these was an imported 
disease. It was not until several months after pleuro-pneumonia had 
established itself in the country that an alteration took place in the tariff' 
by which live stock came in free of duty, and up to that time the high rate 
of duty prevented any importations of foreign cattle or sheep being made. 
This fact in itself is sufficient to prove that the malady was not imported 
by foreign cattle. 
This statement from so high an authority was freely used 
to confound the efforts of those whose energies were directed 
to remedy the evils under which stock-owners were suffering. 
The value of Dutch cattle as heavy milkers being well known in 
those days to the dairymen of London, and the first outbreak 
recorded of foot-and-mouth disease having occurred at Stratford, 
in Essex, these facts taken together form a strong presumptive 
argument that a diseased animal or animals had been smuggled 
in. If no such trade had been carried on, they would not have 
been appreciated for their milking properties. 
The origin of these diseases not being traced, they were con- 
vol. rv. t. s. — 14 t 
