76 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
easy task, while the neglect of it means the greatest injury to the 
future live stock interest of the country. 
At Blissville the mortality from the disease was slight. The 
majority of the animals were slaughtered and sold in the markets 
as beef. This is not in keeping with a malignant disease theory.” 
If Mr. Finlay and his colleagues had been “ well acquainted with 
the history and pathology of the disease in Europe,” they would 
have known that this is precisely the European record of this 
disease. 
In large cities of Great Britain and the Continent, it is alto¬ 
gether exceptional for a cow to die of pleuro-pneumonia. The 
daily men purchase mainly cows in good condition, and when the 
first symptoms of the malady are shown, they send them to the 
slaughter-house for beef. It is a common remark with them that 
they would get rich if they could only keep the cows alive for 
three months after purchase. But to return to the Blissville 
stables. Between the time of the first examination by Professors 
McEachran and Liautard and Mr. Gadsden and the establishing 
of quai an tine, nearly 300 cows had been removed from these 
stables for slaughter or otherwise, so that comparatively few di¬ 
seased cattle were left. T et, of the 600 that remained, we had 
to send 24 to the offal dock, and about 150 more, slightly affected, 
went to the Johnson Avenue slaughter-house. In other words, 
we slaughtered and furnished indemnity certificates for over one- 
tenth of the animals left after the disease had been weeded out, 
to the best of the owners’ knowledge; while, by adding those in 
which traces of the malady were found, we had a grand total of 
nearly one-third of the entire stock affected. It will, perhaps, 
puzzle Mr. Finlay to find another such record in the history of 
the disease. 
Mr. F. cannot claim any necessary ignorance of these facts, 
as this thing was not done in a corner, and every facility was 
afforded to himself and colleagues for examinations and autopsies 
on any condemned animals they might select. 
It would be easy to multiply cases showing the contagious na¬ 
ture of this affection in and around Brooklyn and New York, 
but I shall not encroach on your valuable pages further than to 
