SANITARY LEGISLATION. 
385 
SANITARY LEGISLATION. 
CONTAGIOUS DISEASES AMONG CATTLE. 
Report of the Veterinary Committee to the National Cattle 
Growers’ Association. 
To the Convention of the National Cattle Growers’ Association. 
Mr. President and Gentlemen: —We have the honor to 
submit the following report, adopted by the veterinarians and 
sanitary boards from the different States and Territories, at a 
convention held by them in Chicago, November 16 and 17, 1885, 
to wit: 
There exists throughout the United States a large number of 
contagious diseases affecting our domestic animals, which are 
most harmful to the agricultural and stock raising industry, which 
entails great losses on the producers of the domestic animals, and 
some of these diseases can be communicated to man, causing 
severe illness and death. These contagious diseases are commun¬ 
icated from the diseased to healthy animals, by contact of the 
animals or by placing the sound animals in localities previously 
occupied by the disease ! ones. Most of these contagious diseases 
have been imported into the United States from foreign countries, 
and are to a great extent still confined to limited localities, the 
majority of them in the Eastern States. Other of these con¬ 
tagious diseases are indigenous to the American continent, but 
are confined as yet to limited localities. All of these contagious 
diseases are spreading with variable rapidity, and are surely 
increasing. The violence and contagiousness of these diseases 
are variable, some being excessively dangerous, some only 
moderately so, some affecting several species of animals, some 
confined to a single species. Of these contagious diseases, pleuro¬ 
pneumonia in cattle, hog cholera, Texas fever, tuberculosis, and 
glanders in horses, are prevalent throughout a large portion of 
the United States, and are on the increase, destroying thousands 
of animals each year, and are injuring our commerce, both inter¬ 
state and foreign, to the extent of millions annually. These 
contagious diseases are propagated only by submitting sound 
