REMARKS ON SOUTHERN CATTLE FEVER. 
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REMARKS ON SOUTHERN CATTLE FEVER. 
By W. H. Harbaugh, V. S. 
(Read before the Virginia State Veterinary Medical Association, Charlottesville, Va., 
January 3, 1895.) 
Texas fever, Southern cattle fever, or, as it is better known 
to the public in this State, murrain or bloody murrain, is a sub¬ 
ject of vast importance to every member of this association, as 
we all reside and practice either within the territory designated 
by the United States authorities as the permanently infected 
district, or close to the so-called line of the infected district, 
where cases of the disease are liable to occur at any time during 
the season of the year the fever manifests itself, and we are 
therefore called upon to treat the disease as practical veterin¬ 
arians, not as investigators or theorists. 
The cattle owner does not care how well we are read up on 
the subject; the difference in opinion as to the real cause of the 
malady is nothing to him ; his animal is suffering with a disease 
generally supposed to be fatal, and he wants it relieved. We 
are called upon to relieve it, and we must do our best under the 
circumstances, or else acknowledge that we do not know enough 
about this particular disease to attempt treatment. That the 
disease is the least understood and the most generally mis¬ 
understood by the profession at large, and the public as well, 
there can be no doubt, but it by no means follows that the treat¬ 
ment is hopeless, as I will endeavor to demonstrate later on. 
Many of the erroneous ideas in regard to the malady are the 
direct result of veterinary writers who, knowing nothing of the 
subject themselves, depend on the writings of others for their 
knowledge, and usually fail to understand what they read. As 
an example of such ideas, I will quote from an article in the 
December Review : 
“The microparasite is always present in Southern cattle, even if they have been 
away from the Southern pastures for a few years. 
“All Southern calves go through a natural inoculation by the ticks, at which age 
