106 
REVIEWS. 
them are diseased and die of the disease both in Texas and in 
the north. Your committee had plain evidence of this; and 
in a recent report by Dr. Rauch, of Chicago, presented to 
the Board of Health of that city, on the 1st September, 
Dr. Rauch states—‘ That during the past week it has been 
satisfactorily demonstrated that Texas and Cherokee cattle 
suffer from this disease, hut not to the same extent as native 
cattle. The same structural lesions have been found, and 
three carcases have been condemned as unfit for food.’ It is 
quite possible that in many Texan cattle the disease may have 
assumed a form not sufficiently active to destroy them 
speedily, hut, like some of the natives of India, having en¬ 
larged spleens, not very sick, yet sufficiently diseased to con¬ 
taminate others. It is well known to medical men that such 
men are moving pest-houses, and army surgeons are careful 
to exclude them from the camp. Such may be thousands of 
Texas cattle. The idea that a perfectly sound and healthy 
animal has the power of imparting a disease of a highly 
infectious and virulent character, is contrary to correct patho¬ 
logical principles. In conjunction with this extraordinary 
notion, it is contended that diseased native animals cannot 
contaminate others. Thus we are asked to believe two state¬ 
ments entirely opposed to each other, and equally opposed to 
pathological science. First, we are asked to believe that 
perfectly healthy animals can impart a malignant and highly 
infectious disease, and then that the animals which have 
become diseased have not the power of infecting others. 
During their stay at Illinois your committee had no evi¬ 
dence presented to them which proved that diseased native 
animals liad^ or had 7iot, the power of infecting others, hecaicse 
the period necessary for the second incubation of the disease 
had not elapsed. However, in the Illinois correspondence of 
the Country Gentlemaii of the 10th instant, it is stated 
that,^Cattle continue to die, and it is now generally believed 
that sick native cattle will infect healthy native cattle. I 
have a valuable cow at home, which has never been exposed, 
and I am now so convinced that she might take the disease 
from such native cattle, that I would not leave her six hours 
on the street or public road for half her value.’ 
Your committee found that the most ardent advocates of 
the theory that diseased native cattle had not the power of 
affecting others would not run the risk of placing their own 
healthy stock beside them. They were not whiling to subject 
their theory to this test. It is to be feared that ere long 
there may be abundant and melancholy evidence of the ffict 
that diseased native cattle will infect others. Nothing short 
