426 
Publications of Interest to Agriculturists. 
English cattle-breeders have too painful an experience of the 
ravages of contagious pleuro-pneumonia to render necessary any 
apology for the quotation of the following paragraphs from the 
volume. The action taken in connection with this matter by the 
executive authority in the United States will also be within their 
recent recollection. The responsibility for the statement that 
pleuro-pneumonia has been eradicated from the United States, 
and that it is not probable the disease will ever be seen in that 
country again, rests of course with those who make it. Nevertheless, 
it seems pertinent to ask how it can be known that every part of a 
vast territory like the United States is free from pleuro-pneumonia ; 
also, why it is probable that the disease will never be seen in that 
country again, although cattle are constantly imported from parts of 
Europe where pleuro-pneumonia is known to exist. 
CONTAGIOUS PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 
This disease has been eradicated from the United States, and it is not 
probable that it will ever he seen in this country again. As, however, much 
interest has been manifested in regard to it for a number of years, and as our 
cattle are still prohibited from some foreign markets on account of its recent 
existence here, the subject is treated at greater length than would otherwise 
be necessary. 
The contagious pleuro-pneumonia of cattle is a specific epizootic disease 
which affects bovine animals, and from which other species are exempt. It 
is characterised, when the disease results from exposure in the usual manner, 
by an inflammation of the lungs and pleurae, which is generally extensive 
and which has a tendency to invade portions of these organs not primarily 
affected, and to cause death of the diseased portion of the lung. This 
disease is frequently called the lung plague, which corresponds with its 
German name of Lungenseuche. In French it is spoken of as the pSripneu- 
monie contagieuse. 
The history of the contagious pleuro-pneumonia of cattle cannot be 
traced with any certainty to a period earlier than the beginning of the 
eighteenth century. No doubt it existed and ravaged the herds of Europe 
for many years, and perhaps centuries, before that time, but veterinary 
knowledge was so limited that the descriptions of the symptoms and post- 
mortem appearances are too vague and too limited to admit of the identifi- 
cation of the maladies to which they refer. It has been supposed by some 
writers that certain passages in the writings of Aristotle, Livy, and Virgil 
show the existence of pleuro-pneumonia at the time that their works were 
composed, but their references are too indefinite to be seriously accepted as 
indicating this rather than some other disease. 
As early as 1713 and 1714 it seems quite plain that pleuro-pneumonia 
existed in Suabia and several cantons of Switzerland. Even clearer 
accounts are in existence of its prevalence in Switzerland in 1732, 1743, and 
1765. In 1769 a disease of cattle was investigated in Franche-Comtd by 
Bourgelat which was called murie, but which undoubtedly was identical 
with the pleuro-pneumonia of to-day. From that period we have frequent 
and well-authenticated accounts of its existence in various parts of Europe. 
During the period from 1790 to 1812 it was spread throughout a large por- 
tion of the Continent of Europe by the cattle driven for the subsistence of 
the armies which marched and countermarched in all directions. It was 
generally prevalent in Italy in 1800. It appears to have been unknown, 
