STAMPING OUT PLEURO PNEUMONIA IN NEW YORK. 153 
situation. The main business in Putnam county is the production 
of milk for the New York market, and the present inv. sion of 
a contagious disease among their herds, threatened ruin to a pros¬ 
perous people, so that when the hour of meeting arrived the rep¬ 
resentative men of the county were present, and after a discussion 
of the ways and means of raising the money required to indem¬ 
nify owners of condemned cattle, a resolution was passed that 
the Board of Supervisors raise the necessary funds and that the 
work should be carried forward with energy and dispatch. 
Next day the Board of Supervisors had a meeting, and by 
their official action confirmed the wishes of the people. 
Sheriff Doam, of Brewsters, was placed in charge of the work, 
and with the aid of a Veterinary Inspector from the General’s 
staff the slaughter of the diseased and infected herds was vigor¬ 
ously pushed forward, and the county saved from the threatened 
invasion. 
In the northern and western parts of Westchester county, a 
number of herds were found infected with the lung plague, all 
of whom were slaughtered and the buildings disinfected. 
Up to May, 1880, only one herd of cattle had been found 
infected on Staten Island, and by their prompt destruction and 
the failure to find more after a thorough inspection, the Island 
was regarded as free of disease. On May 12th, notice of sick¬ 
ness in a herd at Stapleton, S. I., was reported and although the 
herd was destroyed at once, great anxiety is felt in the vicinity by 
the owners of cattle, as this infected herd had pastured on the 
commons with nearly three hundred cows belonging to different 
owners. Staten Island offers as good a field for the propagation 
of contagious pleuro-pneumonia as the suburbs of Brooklyn. 
Here, thousands of acres of commons invite the small dairyman 
to settle, because of its proximity to New York, and though but 
little grass can be had, the large number of breweries furnish 
abundant food of its kind. 
The number of cattle that were found sick with the disease 
up to date, killed and paid for by the State, is 765 ; and the 
number examined by our inspectors, 68,746—this does not in¬ 
clude the re-inspections. 
