146 
EDITORIAL. 
pearance of dourine as an incident of the importation of French 
stallions, a business which was at that period becoming one of 
great importance. 
If our memory serves us rightly, he said in reply that he had 
heard of the presence of some disease which very much resembled 
dourine, but that no cases of it had as yet come under his per¬ 
sonal inspection in this country. 
There is now no longer room for any doubts on the subject. 
Our Western papers mention it, and Dr. W. Williams, Assistant 
State Veterinarian of Illinois, is busily engaged in investigating 
an outbreak in De Witt County, in that State. Two imported 
stallions are reported to have died from it, and nine more are 
now under treatment. .It is also said that forty mares have suc¬ 
cumbed to the disease, and that some fifteen or twenty others are 
still affected ; and a number of stallions have been subjected to 
quarantine. 
This is an exceedingly important subject, and our friends of 
the Bureau of Animal Industry have a weighty responsibility de¬ 
volved upon them. At the present time, when the importation 
of stallions from beyond the Atlantic has assumed the extensive 
proportions which it has in fact attained, the duty of protecting 
the interests both of the importers and the dealers of our great 
breeding centres becomes pressingly imperative. The disease is 
of too serious a character, and too fatal in its results, to be ig¬ 
nored, and all stallions brought to our various ports ought to be 
submitted to a rigid inspection before they are allowed to be dis¬ 
tributed throughout the Western States, where, instead of the 
improvement of our stock, the effect of their presence and em¬ 
ployment will be the spread of a disease so widely and fatally 
contagious as that which they will be sure, in a double sense, to 
propagate. 
We hope Dr. Williams will succeed in making his investiga¬ 
tion as thoroughly complete and exact as the importance of the 
case demands, and that, moreover, he will not fail to recognize 
the propriety of supplementing his good work by furnishing the 
.Review with a copy of his report for publication, for the benefit 
of our constituency and any others who may thus become inter¬ 
ested and curious in the discussion of the subject. 
