532 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
CORRESPONDENCE, 
STAMPING OUT PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 
By E. F. Thayer, V.S. 
The recent “scare” across the water, caused by the arrival of 
cattle affected with pleuro-pneumonia (doubtless caused by ex¬ 
posure in snow-bound cars), reflects the injury, if not the ruin, of 
our great interest in the export cattle trade. The question recurs, 
why not extirpate the scourge throughout the United States ? It 
can be done, for it was done in Massachusetts, and we see no reason 
why the same result cannot be obtained in other States; not with¬ 
out labor, nor without money, yet if successfully accomplished, it 
would be the greatest boon that could be conferred upon the farm¬ 
ing and grazing interests of this country. 
How can it be extirpated ? Enact stringent laws giving power 
to competent persons to trace out and visit all suspected herds, 
and either at once slaughter them, or isolate and afterwards 
slaughter, the payment for the animals to be apportioned to the 
town and State, the expenses of the Commissioners to be paid by 
the State. It is not probable that the disease exists in more than 
three or four States. One-quarter, or at most one-lialf, a million 
of dollars would finish the work, unless it exists more extensively 
than the reports indicate. It may be said that there is no imme¬ 
diate danger, as the disease does not exist in the localities from 
which the exported cattle are purchased. True, but who knows 
how distant the day is, in which, if the malady is allowed to exist, 
animals from diseased herds will be sold to western buyers; and 
with the long period of incubation, the number of animals which 
may be infected before the malady is recognized, if it should 
be introduced among the millions of cattle on the Texas plains, 
the losses would be appalling. To the writer it appears suicidal 
not to take hold of the matter and press it to a successful termi¬ 
nation. The often repeated statement that Creat Britian has 
suffered an annual loss of ten millions of dollars ($10,000,000) by 
