OBSERVATIONS ON THE LUNG PLAGUE OF CATTLE. 787 
By July 1st, 1879, we had perfected arrangements to receive 
fresh cows and other store cattle from healthy districts only into 
new inspection yards from which all other stock were excluded, 
and to allow no other animals to be distributed as store cattle 
in or from New York. Pasturage was allowed in enclosed 
ground where herd would be safely secluded from herd. Tile 
police seconded our efforts, so that no cattle could be moved on 
the streets without a special permit granted after inspection of 
the herd to which such belonged. Dealers' stables, which in 
such localities soon became simple pest-houses, were abolished, 
no cows were allowed to leave the city stables except for slaughter, 
and as the fountain of infection was thereby stopped, every sub¬ 
sequent step made in dealing with the disease in individual herds 
was a decided and permanent gain. New infections were exceed¬ 
ingly rare, and the old ones only had to be stamped out. With 
such measures success was assured. 
I urged strongly that Brooklyn should be put under a similiar 
system, and had this been resorted to there can be no doubt 
that the results would have been similar in that city, and that 
the State of New York would have been to-day practically free 
from Lung Plague. But the prospective lack of means, the ex¬ 
isting opposition of the city magnates and magistrates, and other 
considerations which need not be mentioned here, stood in the way; 
the adoption of the approved measures was deferred until there 
should be less to hinder, and although money has at last been 
appropriated by the Legislature, three months have elapsed 
without any satisfactory movement in this direction. With 
regard to this it need only be said that any ostensible economy 
that entails delay in the extinction of the disease is the most 
wasteful prodigality. The perpetuation of a force of officials 
and inspectors becomes much more expensive than the execu¬ 
tion of the work in a sharp and decisive manner, and in a much 
shorter period of time; the maintenance of the plague in the 
infected district leads to a continuous and in the end a far 
greater outlay in indemnities for cattle slaughtered; the con¬ 
tinued interference with the normal channels of home trade 
heightens the burden in a way that cannot easily be estimated; 
the persistence of the plague loses to the nation 1,500,000 
dollars a year on our exports to England, and finally every 
day of delay endangers the infection of the middle states, 
and of the western and southern grazing ground, which would 
perpetuate the plague for ever, and entail an annual tax equal to 
that imposed by the late war. 
Already we see the evil effects of a relaxation of efficient work 
in other parts of New York than Brooklyn. When the appro¬ 
priation was made in February I at once took measures to in- 
