CLIMATIC INFLUENCES ON DISEASES OF LITE STOCK. 
715 
2— CLIMATIC INFLUENCES ON CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF 
LIVE STOCK. 
By P. R. GORDON, Chief Inspector of Stock, Queensland. 
Thirty years continuously spent in official positions connected with 
the controlling of contagious diseases of live stock in Australia have 
afforded me extended opportunity for observing the effects of the 
Australian climate in modifying, and in some instances almost changing, 
the character of some contagious diseases common to live stock in 
other countries. 
Owing to our strict quarantine laws our live stock have, fortun- 
ately, so far, maintained an immunity from most of the contagious 
diseases prevalent in older Countries, and there are only two fatal 
diseases in live stock in these colonies that may be said to come under 
the ordinary designation of contagious diseases— namely, bovine pleuro- 
pneumonia and sheep catarrh. 
Tuberculosis, although communicable under certain conditions, 
is not usually classed as a contagious disease. Anthrax and several 
others more or less prevalent m the colonies are contagious only in 
the sense that they contaminate the pasture and soil; while psoroptic 
scab, now happily eradicated, although decidedly contagious, is not of 
a fatal nature. 
It has been my fortune — or misfortune — to have had exceptional 
facilities for studying both bovine pleuro-pneumoniaand sheep catarrrh. 
Plenro-pneumonia, which was introduced into AGctoria in 1858, 
made its first appearance in New South Wales in 1862 through the 
herd of Messrs. McLaurin, of Varra Varra, in the Albury district; and 
under the impression that it might be stamped out by the slaughter of 
the infected herd, and under pressure from the cattle-owners of the 
colony, the whole of the cattle on the run — over 10,000 — were con- 
demned by the Government to be slaughtered and burnt, and I was 
employed, under the control of the chief inspector, to see that order 
carried into effect. The lungs and pleura? of each animal, as it was 
slaughtered, were examined and reported on by me. 
In respect of sheep catarrh I have also had extensive practical 
experience from 1857, when I lost 5,000 sheep in flocks under my 
charge, in Victoria, down to 1884, when the last of six serious out- 
breaks in Queensland, ranging over a period of sixteen years, was 
stamped out by the slaughter of the sheep. 
The nature and symptoms of bovine pleuro-pneumonia are too 
well known to require description here. With the Australian type of 
catarrh in sheep, however, the case is different. All the outbreaks of 
that disease have occurred under circumstances when the services of 
a veterinary surgeon have not been available; and as the disease assumes 
here a type so much more fatal than the disease of the same name in the 
flocks of other countries, a short description of its symptoms will be 
of interest and is necessary for the purposes of this paper. 
The disease, which is really catarrhal fever, first appeared iu 
New South Wales in 1834, aud for years the mortality from it was 
alarming. Its first appearance was in ail upland district, from which 
it rapidly spread by contagion. The earlier symptoms do not differ 
from those in ordinary catarrh. It runs its course in from twelve to 
thirty-six hours, and in the last stage the nasal discharge is viscid 
