EDITORIAL 
339 
THE POSITION OF THE PLEURO-PNEUMONIA STRUGGLE. 
To the Gazette: 
The time has not yet come when those interested in the complete extirpation 
of pleuro-pneumonia from this country can suspend tlieir exertions with the assur¬ 
ance that the achievement of this end is only a question of time. It is true that 
a great advance has been accomplished within the last year. For the first time 
an adequate appropriation has been made for this work, and authority has been 
granted to use this appropriation for slaughtering both diseased and exposed ani¬ 
mals. The States in which pleuro-pneumonia exists have nearly all supplemented 
the National law by legislative enactments and by executive orders to such an 
extent as to make it possible to do effective work within their borders. This is 
notably true of the worst infected States. 
The field work has been equalty encouraging. Cook County, Ill., though 
more extensely infected than many people supposed, has been nearly freed from 
the contagion by the energetic and thorough measures adopted and enforced by 
Prof. Law with the co-operation of the State Live-Stock Commission. Maryland, 
for a long time one of the chief fountain-heads of the plague, has also been nearly 
. freed from it by the active work of Dr. Wray and his assistants, with the earnest 
support of the Maryland Live-Stock Commission. New Jersey is in better con¬ 
dition than she has been for a long time, and New York State, outside of the great 
seaboard cities, is being rapidly freed from the contagion. 
This is all very encouraging, but the work evidently was begun none too 
soon. The cases which were discovered last winter and spring in Boston show 
that already cattle were being run out of the infected district in Cook County be¬ 
fore a thorough quarantine was established. Tne extensive outbreaks in the 
interior counties of Washington and Delaware, in the State of New York, which 
have recently been suppressed, demonstrate that the conditions favoring the dis¬ 
semination of this disease have recently been rapidly increasing. 
These facts are mentioned to emphasize the necessity that every stockman in 
the land should give his earnest support to the Bureau of Animal Industry in the 
desperate efforts that are required to stamp out this plague from its breeding 
places in our country. Neither a hundred nor a thousand men are sufficient to 
police this country so as to unerringly discover in their first stages the fresh out¬ 
breaks of our enemy. In both Washington and Delaware Counties considerable 
headway had been gained before the tronble was brought to the notice of the 
Bureau. I desire to press upon your readers, therefore, the necessity of reporting 
promptly the existence of any acute lung disease of cattle which attacks more 
than one animal in a herd. 
A few days ago a gentleman of great experience in public life, and well 
known because of his labors in behalf of our agriculturists, remarked to me that 
he considered the effort to wipe out pleuro-pneumonia at once and for all time 
from this continent to be one of the grandest undertakings of the age. No doubt 
this estimate of the work is correct, and it is very certain that if successful it may 
be placed at the head of the works inaugurated in t his country for the benefit of 
our farmers. But if it should fail from insufficient support, what a blot this 
would be upon the foresight and intelligence of our people! 
