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JAMES D. HOPKINS. 
STAMPING OUT PLEURO PNEUMONIA IN NEW YORK. 
By James D. Hopkins, D.Y.S. 
Inspector on General Patrick's Staff. 
The law under which the recent attempt to stamp out contagious 
pleuro-pneumonia in the State of New York was made, was 
enacted by the Legislature in 1878, but remained a dead letter 
until the commercial interests of the country received a blow, 
through the action of a foreign government, taken in order to save 
themselves from an invasion of this pestilence. Our government 
cannot plead ignorance of the insidious enemy in our midst, as 
they have received repeated warnings from the veterinary profes¬ 
sion and press. 
An article by Prof. James Law, that was published in the 
New York Weekly Tribune , Nov. 27, 1878, calling attention to 
the wide spread of this “ lung plague ” into the States south of 
New York, and especially into the District of Columbia, was 
widely copied, both in this country and England. 
A cargo of cattle shipped from Portland, Me., on arriving at 
Liverpool in the January following, was condemned as being 
affected with contagious pleuro-pneumonia, which led to special 
inquiries by the English government, who appointed Prof. 
McEachran, of the Montreal Veterinary College, to investigate. 
Prof. McEachran’s report that the lung plague existed in 
Washington, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn, was followed early in 
Eebruary by an order of the British Privy Council that all 
American cattle should be slaughtered immediately on their 
arrival at English ports. 
On the 6th of February Gov. Robinson commissioned Prof. 
Law, of Cornell University, to investigate the reports of disease 
in Kings and Queens Counties, and on the 10th Prof. Law 
having made his report of the presence, existence and dangerous 
character of the disease, the Legislature made an appropriation of 
