MALADIE DU COIT. 
301 
ent narrow scope, I advised that Utopia should be withdrawn 
from the stud until all symptoms of disease should disappear, pre¬ 
scribed such treatment as I thought best for both mares and stal¬ 
lion, and as the other stallion (Black Brilliant) exhibited no signs 
of disease, I advised that he be continued in the stud. The 
affected animals apparently improved for a time and I saw them 
once more in April, at which time I made some immaterial changes 
in the treatment, and here my personal observation of the disease 
ended until renewed by your directions in May of the present 
year. My second visit in April, 1886, brought me to a more full 
realization of the dangers to our horse breeding interests from 
this disease, and accordingly I reported the matter briefly to you 
under date of May 1, 1886. 
Verbal reports of the spread of the disease in De Witt County 
reached me occasionally during the summer and fall of 1886, until 
early in 1887 the accounts became so alarming that I reported the 
matter more fully to you and urged decisive action. 
Returning to the Harrold & Culbertson farm at the date of 
sale of Utopia to Foley & Seniff, it seems that Utopia previous to 
his sale had infected some mares wttliout attracting the attention 
of the owners, which in their turn transmitted the disease to other 
stallions and thus the malady continued to spread, unobserved in 
1884, suspected in the autumn of 1885, and asserting itself posi¬ 
tively in 1886. 
The totally unknown and unsuspected nature of the affection, 
with its long periods of incubation, latency and want of such pro¬ 
nounced symptoms in its earlier stages as we usually expect in a 
deadly contagious disease, readily allowed it to gain a disastrous 
hold unobserved or at least unrecognized. 
Previous to the general recognition of the dangerous character 
of the disease the usual traffic in horses went on uninterrupted, so 
that a number of exposed mares and certainly two or three diseased 
mares were disposed of ere the public was aware, but fortunately 
it seems that only a very few of actually diseased mares changed 
hands, and nearly all of these have been found and safely quaran¬ 
tined, and the others traced to dealers’ hands, from whence in all 
probability they went to our large cities or northern pineries for 
