413 
THE VETERINARIAN, JULY 1, 1857. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat, 
Cicero. 
THE CATTLE PLAGUE. 
Pending the publication of the official inquiry, instituted 
by the three national agricultural societies of England, 
Scotland, and Ireland, into the nature and consequences of 
the disease which has prevailed with more or less intensity 
among the cattle of several Continental States, we are enabled 
to lay before our readers the following particulars relating to 
this interesting subject. Scarcely a fear need, however, be 
entertained that this destructive pest will reach our shores. 
Its present great distance from us would, of itself, afford a 
fair security; but when w T e add to this that no cattle find 
their way from thence directly or indirectly to the English 
market, and that in the event of the disease spreading from 
Galicia, it would have to break through a hundred military 
cordons , one after the other, before reaching the eastern side 
of the German States, we confess that we believe all alarm 
may cease on this head. If this malady were one that 
owed its extension to unexplained causes ; if it suddenly 
showed itself in one part of the Continent and rapidly spread, 
despite all precautionary measures, to others near to or at a 
greater distance from its origin ; if, in short, it possessed all 
the characters of an epizootic, then we have no doubt that, 
long since, we should have been both painfully and practically 
familiar with it in this country, and that hundreds of our 
cattle would have succumbed to its destructive power. 
No disease that we have ever studied appears to be governed 
by such fixed laws as this. The Steppes of Russia are its home, 
and here it may be said to hold almost undisputed sway. 
H ere also it is alone regarded as having a spontaneous origin ; 
a point which requires, however, more investigation, in our 
opinion, than it has hitherto received. Certain it is that in 
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