PLEUROPNEUMONIA. 
121 
tending to show the value of such cattle for work. Still, again, it is true that 
the botcher employed on this farm says that he killed an animal from this herd 
more thau a year ago whose lungs were affected in precisely the same way that 
those were which the Commissioners decided had the pleuro-pueumonia. But 
his story was not believed. Ah no ! for it rau counter to the popular theory in 
regard to the disease. The tale of any old gossip, nay, even the “ heard tell ” 
which dame Rumor so generally employs, is sufficient to prove that the cattle 
at the Box Tavern were the means of giving the disease to Smith’s herd. But 
here, a man who says he examined the lung carefully, and certainly had percep¬ 
tion enough, if ever he had seen one good case of pleuro-pneumonia, to know 
another case, is doubted. The old lady could not be made to believe her son’s 
story of the wonders ot the sea, though told with moderation; but when he 
told her of the great gold chariot-wheel which they fished out of the Red Sea, 
stamped with Pharaoh’s name, she could believe, because she had read in the 
Scripture about its being lost there. There is still another fact in relation to 
the Deer Island stock worthy of notice, viz : seven of the ten cows killed by 
the Commissioners, and found diseased, had passed from the acute to the chronic 
stage of the disease without Mr. Payson’s notice, either by the falling olf in 
their milk, or in any other way; a fact which carries additional weight when 
we remember that Mr. Payson is not one of those “ guess so” farmers, but one 
who takes just pride in pointing out each cow in his herd, and referring to his 
memoranda, states the exact amount of milk she gave in any given month, and 
the butter made therefrom. One may well ask how can it be that cows affected 
with pleuro-pneumonia are worthless for milk, when such a man had it in his 
herd for mouths, and never dreamed but that he had a healthy herd ? 
My associates, in their report, mention the fact that an experiment is in 
progress to test certain points in reference to the effect of pleuro-pueumonia in 
cows, and without giving any particulars in relation to the progress of the 
experiment, intimated that at some future day all the facts shall be made 
known. It seems to me proper that the facts thus far developed should be 
reported, and I shall therefore venture to give such as have come to my knowl¬ 
edge. 
About the first of July two cows were brought from Smith’s herd, in Ashby, 
to Newtonville, and placed in a barn which had been previously selected as a 
suitable place to try the experiment. To all appearances this barn is in a 
healthy locality, and unless the confinement to which the cows were subjected 
be objected to, I cannot see why it was not a good place for the trial. On the 
eighth of the same month four cows were brought from Maine, and immediately 
after their arrival, while in that state of exhaustion which the iourney would 
produce, one of them was tied in a stall between the two sick cows for twenty- 
four hours. Each of the Maine cows were similarly exposed. The two cows 
brought from Ashby were then killed, and found to have been diseased with 
contagious pleuro-pneumonia. The lungs of one were but slightly affected, but 
the other had a large portion of one lung diseased. No other animal of Smith’s 
herd, except one cow, was as badly affected, the lung on one side weighing 
twelve pounds, on the other a little over two pounds. In about forty days Dr. 
Thayer decided that one of the exposed cows had the disease, and expressed au 
opinion that two others would have it. Two other veterinary surgeons were 
quite confident that three of the four cows had an adhesion, but Dr. Thayer has 
