RESEARCHES ON THE AMERICAN CATTLE PLAGUE. 179 
being dangerous, as it was before the death of the infusoria, 
it becomes completely inoffensive. 
The important application to therapeutics which these 
results have enabled me to make, may be seen in my work on 
‘ Phenic Acid.^— Comptes Rendus, t. Ixvii. No. 18. 
IMPORTANT RESEARCHES ON THE AMERICAN CATTLE 
PLAGUE. 
Dr. E. Harris, the medical officer of the Metropolitan 
Board of Health of New York, in a communication to Dr. 
W. Budd, of Clifton, makes some announcements of the 
highest interest in regard to the cattle plague, which has been 
introduced into the more eastern states by infected cattle from 
Texas. Among the points which appear to be established by 
these researches are :—1. That the disease is a true contagium, 
marked by many striking peculiarities in its mode of incu¬ 
bation and after evolution, but belonging strictly to the self- 
propagating order; and, 2. That this contagium is entirely 
new to the races of cattle which have lately become infected 
with it. But what is most interesting in Dr. Harrises com¬ 
munication is the statement that he and his coadjutors have 
satisfied themselves that the specific cause, or materies morbi 
of the plague, is a living organism of definite form and pro¬ 
perties, which multiplies in the body of the infected animal, 
and, passing off with the excreta, spreads the plague by in¬ 
fecting the ground. Assuming that there is no fallacy in the 
observations, the data in favour of this view would seem to 
be much more precise and binding than in the case of any of 
the minute organisms which have from time to time been 
described as the cause of acute contagious disorders. Figures 
of the object, as seen in the substance of the liver, accompany 
Dr. Harrises letter, and are now' before us. The detailed 
report of these observations, now in the press for immediate 
publication, by authority of the Metropolitan Board of Health, 
will be awaited with much interest by scientific men on this 
side the Atlantic.— British Medical Journal, 
