PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 
113 
beiug again intimated tliat a disease existed among his cattle, another examina¬ 
tion took place, by appointment, July 1st. Several chronic cases were found, 
and it was ordered that the herd be isolated. Mr. Cutter stated that he had 
already lost eleveu head of cattle, the first one dying in March, and there being 
no case of sickness for several weeks, it was hoped the remainder would escape; 
but on the 21st one of the most severe cases was found; in fact the animal could 
not long survive. It was theu decided to have the herd slaughtered. On exam¬ 
ination, eight were diseased and five were healthy. 
The Commissioners were next called to examine a herd of cattle at Deer 
Island, belonging to the city of Boston. Five had been killed by the order of 
the directors of the institution there, before the appraisal of the herd was made. 
It consisted of forty-one head, many of them valuable. Eleven heavy oxen being 
among the number, seven were selected for experiment; thirty-four were 
slaughtered, seventeen proved healthy, and seventeen diseased. Thirteen hun¬ 
dred and thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents ($1,338.53) was realized from 
the sale of the beef, etc., of the healthy animals, and applied in part payment of 
the apprais'd value of the cattle. 
The conclusions to which the Commissioners have arrived from their inves¬ 
tigations the past year, are that if a herd of cattle is surely exposed by being in 
contact with an animal in (he early stage of the disease (as for instance, in an 
ordinary barn, as cattle are usually tied up), slaughtering the herd and selling 
the healthy for beef is the most economical mode of treating it; but if the expo¬ 
sure is doubtful, isolation, with careful watching, should be resorted to. Facts, 
with the figures to substautiate the above, can be produced, but it is thought 
unnecessary. 
It is often asked, “ Why kill the diseased ? Why not let them recover ? ” 
In answer, it is proper, first, to explain what recovery of the disease called 
pleuro pneumonia is. 
To illustrate: suppose with one-half or two-thirds of one lung solidified, the 
first effort of nature is to throw around the diseased mass a covering of fibrinous 
material, entirely shutting off the healthy tissue from the diseased, which is 
generally accomplished in from fifteen to forty days. Suppuration then com¬ 
mences on the surface of the diseased mass, which continues until the whole is 
liquified; absorption is constantly going on, and in from six to twenty months 
the animal recovers, but with the loss of a portion of the vital organ. If the 
animal is a working bullock, its value is destroyed; if a cow in milk, after the 
acute stage is passed, the secretion is partly restored, and the milk consumed by 
the people. 
Would an intelligent and conscientious physician recommend for a wet nurse 
a person with an abscess or abscesses in the lungs ? If not, why is it not equally 
wrong to use the milk drawn from cows with lungs in 'the same or a similar 
condition ? 
Contagion .—In the first three herds to which the Commissioners were called, 
it is not probable that contact with diseased animals could be proved. Several 
months had elapsed since the disease broke out, and as it was in a locality where 
it was well known that the disease existed the year previous, it is not strange 
that the efforts made to trace it failed. The statements made to the Commission¬ 
ers in relation to the outbreak and spread of the disease in and from Ashby are 
so conclusive that it seems proper to put them in this report. 
