REVIEWS. 
107 
of fatal folly could lead any one to place or allow healtliy 
native cattle to remain with those which had contracted the 
disease. Entire and continued isolation is the only safe¬ 
guard. 
^^THE INFECTIOUS AND MALIGNANT CHARACTER OF THE 
DISEASE. 
“ Your committee are of opinion that the cattle plague is 
infectious, and that it is of a malignant character. Some 
assert that the disease cannot be communicated to animals 
fed in troughs, boxes, stalls, or yards in which Texas cattle 
had previously been fed, but that it is necessary for cattle to 
pasture, day after day, on the same grounds, because the 
virus is specially communicated through the media of excre- 
mentitious or urinary deposits. On the other hand, it is 
stated that all the secretions are powerful as media of infec¬ 
tion, and that cattle may he contaminated by being ayitj- 
tvhere that the Texas cattle may have been, or where their 
secretions may have been deposited. With this opinion your 
committee coincide. They have unquestionable evidence of 
the fact that cattle following Texan cattle, even on the same 
highway, as in the case of Mr. Shelton’s cattle, near Urbana, 
have contracted the disease. The same evidence has been 
presented in other cases, and the virus has been known to 
retain its potency for a period of two months. In the case of 
Mr. Shelton’s calf, a month had elapsed after the passage of 
the Texan herd before the little beast was driven along the 
road, and yet it contracted the disease. 
^‘The committee are of opinion that cattle pasturing in the 
same fields or commons, travelling on the same highways, in 
the same cars, feeding in the same yards or stables, coming in 
contact with the cattle themselves or with their secretions, 
will contract the disease. 
Of course it will be understood that in none of those 
cases disinfectants have been used previous to exposure. 
GENERAL SYMPTOMS AND DURATION. 
In the early stage of the disease there are no well-marked 
symptoms presented by which it may be distinguished from * 
many other complaints. Where a number of animals are 
pasturing together, the infected ox or cow is observed to leave 
the rest of the herd ; the walk is slow and finally becomes 
unsteady; the head is hanging, the ears drooping forward, 
the eyes dull, and from the nose issues a discharge of dark- 
coloured mucus; the back is arched and the flanks hollow. 
