DISEASE IN CATTLE. 
169 
wholesome meat ] and would it not so enhance the value of sound 
animal food, as to act as a prohibition to the working classes; 
and thus produce an additional measure of distress among thousands 
upon thousands of our fellow-beings, already ground to the dust by 
the most abject penury, and suffering in silent misery all the horrors 
of want and disease ? 
This may be regarded as a mere phantom of the brain, but it 
may, perchance, prove a stern reality, unless timely prevented ; 
it is, therefore, a subject worthy of legislative consideration. In 
the mean time I would urge upon the farmers and graziers of this 
country to take every precautionary means in their power to pre- 
vent the spread of the contagion, and, above all, to protect them- 
selves from loss by insurance. AGRICOLA. 
DISEASE IN CATTLE. 
By G. W. 
Sir, — Having read several letters on the fatal diseases in cattle 
from Mr. Waters, of Putney, and from several others, I find they 
all differ in opinion as to the nature and cause of the disease, and 
the appearances after death. I find Mr. Waters states he has 
taken many post-mortem examinations of cattle that have died 
from the disease, and he found the left lobe of the lungs hepatized, 
and of enormous size and weight. In one case, 1843, he says he 
found the left lobe weighed 78 lbs., and had the appearance of 
rough-jointed brickwork, and not tainted by unpleasant smell, as 
in acute cases of inflamed lungs ; for in that case they would be, 
as described by Dr. Armstrong, congested and gorged with venous 
black blood, gangrene, and mortification, with a horrid stench. He 
considers that the epidemics of 1840 and 1841 were produced from 
atmospherical influence, and close and badly-ventilated cow-sheds, 
&c., and that the present and fatal diseases are from hereditary 
predisposing causes. No doubt many cattle that survived the 
shock of epidemics in 1840 and 1841 had a slight attack of in- 
flammation, of an insidious form, on the lung, which has been suc- 
ceeded by the escape of serous effusion into their cellular tissue and 
chest. From the debility consequent on the epidemic, which has been 
making a secret progress, and in some cases that of many months, 
even years, it has been thus progressing in size and weight, un- 
noticed by the owner ; but it would have been recognized by a prac- 
tical veterinary surgeon. When, however, this disease arrives at a 
certain crisis, the milky secretions are suspended (consequently there 
is no supply of milk), the cow leaves off chewing the cud, wastes in 
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