70 
J. LAW. 
William Meakira of Bushwick had his herd infected in 1849 
b} T a yoke of oxen employed in drawing grains from the Brooklyn 
distilleries and lost forty head in three months, and from six to 
ten head yearly for twenty years thereafter, when he gave np the 
business. This brings it down to 1869. Since that date I have 
been frequently consulted about this disease, not in New York 
only, but in the adjoining states on the south and occasionally in 
Connecticut. 
Why has the Malady not extended West f 
From New York the plague has extended two hundred miles 
in a direction southward, and to-day holds its ground and contin¬ 
ues to extend as opportunity offers. It has followed this course 
simply because the traffic in live stock during the war and since 
has been active from New York to the large cities on the south 
and because in and around these large cities, the infection has 
found that constant interchange of animals and mingling of 
herds which insures its perpetuation by presenting an endless 
succession of new and susceptible subjects. The same extension 
would have taken place over all the large manufacturing cities of 
New England, but for the careful guardianship of the Cattle 
Commissioners of Connecticut, who throughout these years have 
been called upon at frequent intervals to stamp out circum¬ 
scribed fires of infection lit up by importations from New York. 
The plague has not extended westward mainly because there 
has been so little cattle traffic in that direction. It would have 
been financial folly at any time to send common cattle west from 
the great eastern cities, and, thanks to the Alleghenies, there is 
no large city within two hundred miles of New York in that 
direction, that would draw upon the market of the latter for dairy 
cows, or that calculated to keep up the disease by the constant 
interchanging of animals among herds. 
The dangers from thoroughbred cattle sent west were incom¬ 
parably greater, but several conditions served to reduce the risks 
of infection by this channel. 
First. Thoroughbreds are usually better guarded against 
danger of contamination, not being sold in the common stock- 
yards. 
