124 
CATTLE DISEASES IN AMERICA. 
with brucine, it gives a dark sherry colour, with strychnine a 
reddish-yellow, and with aspidospermine an intense red. 
Iodic anhydride and sulphuric acid give with brucine an 
intense orange-yellow ; morphine, deep violet, then orange 
brown; and curarine, pink. These reactions are suitable as 
lecture experiments,—W. E.— Journal of the Chemical Society. 
CATTLE DISEASES IN AMERICA. 
We extract the following from Colman’s Rural JForld, 
St. Louis, January 7th, 1880: 
Contagious Animal Diseases. — Petition of the 
United States Veterinary Medical Association. 
To the Honorable the Congress of the United States. 
Whereas, It has been shown that different animal plagues 
prevails to a disastrous extent among the live stock of the 
United States, and that many millions of dollars are annually 
lost to the nation from this cause— 
Whereas, Several of the most redoubtable of these plagues 
are now restricted to circumscribed localities, but threaten 
to speedily extend over wide areas, where, from the mingling 
of herds on unfenced ranges, like the plains, they must be¬ 
come permanently domiciled, at an immense yearly loss that 
will steadily increase with the constant advance of agriculture 
and the increase of our live stock— 
Whereas, The unfenced stock ranges of the west and south 
are at the source of the traffic in live stock, and their infec¬ 
tion must determine the infection of all the channels of the 
traffic (cars, boats, yards, &c.), and of the middle and 
eastern States— 
Whereas, Several of these animal plagues have already led 
different American and European countries to place embar¬ 
goes on our live stock, which will be maintained so long as 
these pestilences are allowed to exist in our midst— 
Whereas, The extinction of these animal contagia is of 
incomparably more importance to the western stock-raising 
States than to the eastern, even though they may be at 
present exclusively confined to the latter— 
Whereas, It is not probable that all the infected States 
will of themselves go to the trouble and expense of stamp¬ 
ing out these pests, in wdiich they have so much less 
pecuniary interest than other States which are as yet 
unaffected— 
