'250 
•T. D. HOPKINS. 
in New York and Westchester counties within the last six months. 
Another means of spreading the disease was the custom of small 
dairies of pasturing their cows on the commons. Here herds be¬ 
longing to different individuals grazed innocently together, and it 
has been my lot to detect the disease and trace it to this source, 
and even to find the affected animals on the commons. The peo¬ 
ple, of course, wondered how their cows contracted the disease. 
You can now fully understand, gentleman, how easily this dis¬ 
ease is transmitted from stable to stable in New York and Brook¬ 
lyn—how from one or two original centres of contagion it has 
been disseminated until now it has assumed such proportions as to 
be almost a national calamity. 
The authorities of New York State until quite recently, took 
no notice of the existence of the disease in our midst, although re- 
peatedly warned by veterinarians and the press. 
Some years ago Frank Leslie, publisher of an illustrated news¬ 
paper, called the attention of the public to the diseased condition 
of cows kept in swill stables, then located between 15th and 16th 
Streets, near North River, and also those in Brooklyn, influencing 
popular opinion to such an extent that many of these stables were 
abolished. His apt illustrations and the humor of his caricatures 
obtained for the vendors of milk from these stables the sobriquet 
of “ stump tails,” from the fact that most of the cows had lost a 
portion of their tails. 
Later, Henry Bergh, President of the American Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, has since the organization 
of his society waged war against the inhuman practices of cow 
owners. These gentlemen made public the condition in which 
cows were kept, and though powerless to remedy the evil, if in¬ 
deed, they recognized the true root, viz : pleuro-pneumonia, did 
much to relieve the condition of the bovine family, and deserve 
the lasting gratitude of residents of New York and Brooklyn. 
Many eminent pathologists wrote to our legislators at Albany 
and Washington without being able to enlist any action in the 
matter. 
In the year 186S, Prof. John Gamgee, under an appointment 
of the General Government, made an official examination in the 
