| LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
Chap. SY 96) 


eet Ml 


PRESENTED BY ' 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 


KG 


ree DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


REHEPORTS 


ON THE 


DISEASES OF CATTLE 


IN 


THE UNITED STATES, 


MADE TO THE 


COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE, 


WITH 


ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTS. 


WASHINGTON: 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, 
1869. 


CONTENTS. 


Page 
RARER 455 Mom, srs = He eee ane ee cle haw So Ota ye stot a Ses ese ee cae ne toma ee 5 
Report on the Lung Plague, by Professor John Gamgee, M. D....--.----.--------- 7 
Appendix No. 1.—Tabular statement of Mortality in Cattle, by Mr. John Reid.... 73 
Appendices Nos. 2 and 3.—Tables of Dutch experiments on Inoculation, Ist and 
POU SOTIOS = crate -teleromt= Seerswia irae ta eters Se sal ae Siete oer Oe Ne te eye sono eet sitio 74 


Report on the I] Effects of Smutty Corn on Cattle, by Professor John Gamgee, M.D. 78 
Report on the Splenic or Periodic Fever of Cattle, by Professor John Gamgee, M.D. 90 


General remarks on the cattle diseases reported on .......-.--------------------- 162 
Remarks on the Ixodes Bovis, by C. N. Riley, St. Louis, Missouri. ........-------- 168 
Letter of Mr. H. W. Ravenel, South Carolina, on the Fungi of Texas...-..-.-.-.-- 169 
Report of results of examinations of Fluids of Diseased Cattle with reference to 
presence of Cryptogamic Growth, by Doctors Billings and Curtis, U. 8. A...---- 174 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
COPPERPLATE. 


Fig. 1.—Micrococcus. 

2.—Bacteria. 
3.—Cryptococcus, (common form.) 
4.—Cryptococcus guttulatus, (Ch. Robin.) 
5.—Penicillium crustaceum, (Fr. old.) 
7.—Aspergillus. 
8, 9, 10.—Mucor racemosus, (Fres.,) from Hoffman. 

11.—Blood from splenic fever x 450. 

12.—Bacteria from bile of splenic fever x 1,200. 

13.—Mycelium with sporangial dilations, result of culture of splenic fever blood. 


WOODCUTS. 


14.—A vacuum tube. 
15.—Isolation apparatus. 
16.—Culture apparatus. 
17.—Development apparatus. 
18.—Ixodes Bovis. 


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PREFACE. 


About the middle of June, 1868, a disease broke out at Cairo, Illinois, 
at a point where large numbers of Texas cattle had been landed. It 
was thought to resemble the disease of the old Spanish cattle on the 
Gulf coast, and was thence called “Spanish fever” and “Texas cattle 
disease.” This spread into Southern Illinois and other districts in con- 
nection with the grand depot at Cairo. 

My attention was called to the serious nature of this disease when 
visiting the fair of the State Agricultural Society at Springfield, [linois, 
and I was induced to secure the services of Professor Gamgee, of London, 
England, who was at the time in this country, to make a full investiga- 
tion, under the following instructions: 

In view of the alarming and continued ravages of the cattle disease in Illinois, known 
popularly as the “Spanish fever,” and assumed to be communicated by cattle recently 
from Texas, I hereby authorize you to make investigations into its cause and character, 
and ascertain and report, if possible, a practicable remedy or means of prevention. 

In accordance with this letter, the professor visited the districts in 
Illinois and vicinity which were affected. 

In the spring of this year he visited that part of Texas on and near the 
Gulf coast, and, accompanied by Mr. H. W. Ravenel, of South Carolina, 
an accomplished botanist, examined into the conditions of food and 
general mode of life of the native cattle of Texas at those points whence 
transportation began. The observations made are embodied in the 
reports of Messrs. Gamgee and Ravenel accompanying. 

It being desirable that some observations should be made upon the 
effect of fungi entering the system of animals in producing alterations 
of the blood and other animal fluids, or general deviations from health 
in stock, an application was made by this Department to Brevet Briga- 
dier General J. K. Barnes, Surgeon General United States army, that 
Doctors J. 8. Billings and E. Curtis, assistant surgeons United States 
army, might be authorized to assist Professor Gamgee in his experi- 
ments upon the subject of the cryptogamic causes of disease. The 
Surgeon General authorized these gentlemen to enter upon that duty, 
and their report is appended. It is not to be presumed that this report 
renders further investigation needless; on the contrary, some practical 
points not yet reached urgently demand examination. One of these 
is the best mode of arresting contagion and the proper preparation for 
cattle before being transported north. To carry out this investigation 
a further appropriation is needed. 


6 ; PREFACE. 


Accompanying these reports are two series of micro-photographs of 
great beauty and value, which are not reproduced here. One is a series 
of eight micro-photographs, painted, illustrative of diseased organs and 
tissués of cattle laboring under pleuro-pneumonia. The second series is 
a group of twelve micro-photographs of diseased tissues and organs of 
cattle that have died of the Texas fever or of pleuro-pneumonia, which 
latter series has been taken at the Army Medical Museum in this city, 
under the supervision of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel J. J. Woodward, 
United States army, from specimens of disease forwarded from various 
points. An explanatory report of the pathological indications, from the 
pen of Dr. Woodward, accompanies the plates, and it is to me a matter 
of great regret that these portions of the work done for the Department 
cannot appear with the reports in the present edition. The cost of repro- 
ducing these as illustrations is so great that I have not felt authorized 
to expend the Department appropriation in order that they might be 
inserted here. As, however, they are essential parts of the report, and 
necessary to complete the medical natural history of the diseases treated 
of, it is hoped that a sum sufficient to cover the expense of engraving 
will be appropriated by Congress, so that in another edition they may 
be added, and the reports appear in complete form. 

The rapid extension of pleuro-pneumonia during the summer of 1868, 
and its increased fatality at points where cattle were collected in num- 
bers, made it the duty of the Department to ascertain its nature, extent, 
and the possible means of checking or wholly obliterating it. I there- 
fore authorized Professor Gamgee, in the autumn of 1868, to make a full 
investigation of the disease then spreading through many States of the 
Union. In December of that year Professor Gamgee presented a prelim- 

nary report, which was published in the monthly reports of 1868. His 
final report is herewith presented. 
HORACE CAPRON, 
Commissioner of Agriculture. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE, 


BY JOHN GAMGEE, M. D. 


INTRODUCTION. 


The lung plague of cattle, developed alone as the result of contagion, 
recedes and is extinguished wherever the people are fully informed of 
its origin and nature, and measures based on such knowledge are 
adopted and enforced. Americans can learn this from Massachusetts. 
It is, however, the most insidious and the most deceptive of all malig- 
nant bovine disorders. It penetrates and travels far and wide, where 
unsuspecting farmers and dairymen are far from skilled in the veterin- 
ary art. It kills, and yet there are survivors which resist all further 
attacks, and in the course of time they tend to form a small but useful 
nucleus of insusceptible stock, which enables the people to go on, 
though in poverty, and hope for better luck. Every one strives, but in 
secret, lest the publication of facts should prevent the sale and transfer 
of unhealthy or infected stock. Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia, furnish wide fields in 
which to determine the truth of these statements. 

In perusing the history of contagious pleuro-pneumonia, it will be 
found that the experiences of the New World are but repetitions of those 
recorded by Europeans. 

In advising as to the most certain means whereby so destructive a 
malady may be eradicated from this country, I have been actuated by 
the belief that the diffusion of knowledge, in a form that will carry con- 
viction home to every intelligent American, is the most certain means 
whereby to deal a death blow to the lung plague. There are many pru- 
dent and earnest leaders of the agricultural body in every State, who 
can work, and will work, if armed with reliable information; and it is 
my belief in this that has induced me to spare no labor in rendering 
this as complete and satisfactory a record as possible, of all the knowl- 
edge on the subject that is at present at our disposal. Farmers must 
not be alarmed at the scientific garb which must necessarily invest such 
a work. If they follow me through, without a dictionary, they will not 
be left in doubt as to my meaning, and I hope not a few will rise, after 
a perusal of what follows, even though they may inhabit the far distant 
prairies and the mountains of California, and exclaim that it is the duty of 
every American, and especially of every American farmer, to manifest 
his interest in the extinction of a malady that may for centuries, if 


8 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


left unheeded now, harass the stock-raisers of the entire continent, and 
bring poverty and ruin to many thousands of families. 

The report has been subdivided, for convenience of reference, under 
the following heads: 

I. Names by which the lung plague is or has been known in different 
parts of the world. 

II. History of the lung plague from the remotest to the present time. 

IJ. Signs or symptoms by which the disease is recognized during life. 

IV. Signs or appearances by which it is recognized after death. 

V. How the disease is induced, with special reference to predis- 
posing causes and the nature of contagion. 

VI. The pathology or nature of lung plague. 

VII. Medical or curative treatment of the lung plague. 

VIII. Prevention of the lung plague. 


NOMENCLATURE. 


The popular term murrain was applied, in times past, to all fatal cattle 
diseases that prevailed in an epizodtic form. The first satisfactory de- 
scription of the lung plague, written by Bourgelat, in 1769, teaches us 
that the malady had been known for some years in Franche-Comté, 
under the name ‘‘murie.” The expression “pulmonary murrain” has 
been somewhat extensively used in Great Britain of late years, espe- 
cially when reference has been made to the outbreaks of the last century, 
which has been considered as due to the simultaneous introduction in 
the British Isles of the Steppe murrain, commonly known as rinderpest 
and cattle plague, and contagious lung disease. 

When free trade first admitted continental cattle and the lung 
plague into the British Isles, this century, the dairyman who first 
observed the now fatal foot and mouth disease at once became alarmed 
at the “‘new disease,” which proved incurable. Professor Hertwig, of 
Berlin, and correspondents of agricultural papers, soon enabled our 
veterinarians to recognize in the “new disease” the Lawngenseuche, or, 
literally, lungs’ plague of cattle, which had been studied with great 
ability by the veterinary surgeons of Germany. Haller had termed it 
Viehseuche, and expressed his astonishment that it had not been recog- 
nized as a disease of the lungs. 

German writers were so numerous that attempts were not rare to give 
a scientific name to the disease, and Sauberg quotes seven Latin sen- 
tences employed by different authorities in accordance with the views 
of the nature and origin of the disease. They are: 

Peripneumonia pecorun epizodtica typhosa—Veith, Tscheulin, Biirger. 

Peripneumonia exsudativa contagiosa—Rychner, Van Hertum. 

Peripneumonia exsudativa enzodtica et contagiosa—Gielen. 

Peripneumonia s. pleuropneumonia pecorum enzodtica—Dieterichs, 
Vix: 

Pleuritis rheumatico-exsudativa—W agenfeld. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 9 


Pleuropneumonia interlobularis exsudativa—Gluge. 

Pneumonia catarrhalis gastrica asthenica—Numann. 

Haller’s title of Viehseuche is now almost always restricted to the 
Russian murrain, and the name in universal use in Germany is the 
popular one of Lungenseuche, and on the title pages of monographs the 
ordinary expression employed is Lungenseuche des Rindviehes. It has, 
however, also been termed Lungenfiule and Krebsartige Lungenfiule. 

Of the French authors, Chabert first names the malady Péripneumo- 
nie, ou affection gangréneuse du Poumon. Huzard describes it under 
the head Péripneumonie Chronique, ou phthisie pulmonaire, and in 1844 
Delafond designated it Péripneumonie contagieuse du gros Bétail. 

The Dutch called it Kwaadaardige Slymziekte, Heerschende or Besmet- 
telyke Longziekte, Slymziekte, Slymlongziekte, and Rotachtige Longziekte. 

In Italy it has been known by the names Pulmonea dei Bovini, and 
Pleuropneumonia essudativa. 

I am disposed to favor, as a popular name, that of “lung plague,” in 
order to avoid any confusion with sporadic and non-contagious affee- 
tions of the chest. Many years ago Mr. Sarginson, of Westmoreland; 
England, spoke of it as an epizoétic influenza among cattle, and Mr. 
Barlow, afterwards a much respected professor in the Edinburgh Veterin- 
ary College, was among the first to draw attention to the disease under 
the head Epizodtic Pleuropreumonia. 


HISTORY OF THE LUNG PLAGUE. 


Ancient traditions and imperfect records rather tend to bewilder those 
who, from the inferences warranted by a complete knowledge of recent 
events, are anxious to place before the world evidence of the laws of 
nature having been immutable from time immemorial. Our ideas of 
creation, and the facts bearing on the origin of all things, are too meager 
to warrant us in being confident of our interpretations of the past; and 
yet glimpses of light seem to promise a better understanding of even 
antediluvian phenomena in almost every branch of natural history. 

The assertion that plagues known now to be propagated alone by conta- 
gion have thus been transmitted from the remotest antiquity, is usually 
met by objectors with the declaration that the first case must have devel- 
oped spontaneously. Professor Haubner, of Dresden,* accepting the 
proposition, says: “It is correct that the lung plague was once devel- 
oped spontaneously, for no one can suppose that Noah had it with him 
in the ark.” But we can point to a contagious disease, scab in sheep, 
which, if the words of the Bible are to be accepted, indicate the preser- 
vation of the scab insect. it is not my desire to enter on discussions 
which have no direct practical bearing, and I shall dismiss the objec- 
tions of those who spare themselves the labor of inquiry after posi- 
tive truth, by declaring that, so far as science has yet taught us, the great 
law, that like produces like, operates in the increase of certain animal poi- 


* Die Entstehung und Tilgung der Lungenseuche des Rindes, yon Dr. Karl Haubner, 
Leipzig, 1861. 


10 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


sons or forms of specific virus, just as in the case of other living entities 
whose reproduction is undoubted. Spontaneous generation—the theory 
of development by an accidental cohesion and vivifying of inert matter— 
ably as it has been defended up to the present day, is fast passing into 
oblivion. We are, and must probably remain, in ignorance of that final 
cause which once molded and gave life to all that is living. All that 
is living, however, owes that life to parents, ever since the globe became 
inhabited; and there are no facts to indicate that one form of living mat- 
ter grew out of another, and a totally different, form, and that there were 
successive stages in the creation of animals or parts of animals. Animal 
poisons are only known to us, it is true, as parts of animals. They are 
undistinguishable, except from the results produced by them on the 
creatures they infest, and yet they are as foreign to them as the count- 
less parasites that are only known to us as abiding in the living tissues of 
living beings. Indeed animal poisons may be regarded as parasitic pro- 
ductions, and their difference from the more apparent types of organized 
entities may be due more to imperfect means of observation than to act- 
ual diversity. 

Efforts are indeed being made to demonstrate the vegetable origin of 
many animal poisons, and it is supposed by some that crytogamic plants, 
fungi, &¢., not only approach more the nature of many forms of specific 
virus, but actually constitute the contagium or active principle which 
breeds and propagates in the development of small-pox, cholera, the 
plagues of the lower animals, &c. There is one grave objection to all 
that has yet been done in this interesting field of inquiry. The vegeta- 
ble forms into which poisons are said to pullulate have not, in a single 
instance, been successfully employed in the reproduction of the diseases 
they have been supposed to generate. 

Delafond* quotes Aristotle, who wrote his work on the History of 
Animals three hundred and fifty-four years before Christ, in proof of 
cattle being then known to suffer from a disease of the lungs. ‘The 
cattle,” he says, ‘which live in herds are subject to a malady, during 
which the breathing becomes hot and frequent. The ears droop, and 
they cannot eat. They die rapidly, and on opening them the lungs are 
found spoiled.” 

In the collection of extracts and writings of the Greek veterinarians 
made by order of the Emperor Constantine, descriptions of the lung 
diseases of cattle are given which may lead us to infer the prevalence 
even then of the lung plague.t 

It would be simply waste of time to discuss the merits of unsatisfae- 
tory hints—for they are not records—which have been traced in the 
writings of Livy, Vegetius, Sylvius Italicus, Columella, Virgil, and 


*Traité sur la Maladie de Poitrine du Gros Bétail, connue sous le nom de Péripneu_ 
monie Contagieuse, par O. Delafond, Paris, 1844. 

tGeoponicorum, seu de re Rustica, Lib, XX—edited by Peter Needham, Cambridge, 
1704—Quoted by Sauberg. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 11 


others; hints which no doubt demonstrate that which few will question— 
that pulmonary disorders have existed throughout all time. 

The evidence we need is that definite record of outbreaks of a malady 
marked by the leading characteristics of the lung plague. We have to 
skip the age of pure quackery, when nothing but the unsatisfactory pre- 
scriptions of ignorant pretenders in veterinary medicine were handed 
down as valuable additions to human knowledge. A purpose is served, 
however, by referring to these dark ages, when, in their blindness, men 
sought to arrest the unrelenting torrents of fierce contagions by pills, 
draughts, charms, and incantatioas. It makes one blush for the errors 
and superstitions which, in the Old World and the New, prevail up to 
the present hour. For seven and twenty years, at least, my countrymen 
have, in the main, favored nothing but quackery in this respect just as 
much as continental nations that suffered in ignorance did in the seven- 
teen hundred years succeeding the birth of Christ. So late as 1865 the 
outbreak of a virulent cattle plague in England developed in its train 
the compounders of drugs and filth and the believers in the treatment 
of isolated cases of a plague; of a plague, indeed, which advances in 
direct ratio to the delay in extinguishing its virulent poison, and the 
rapidity of whose spread may be likened to that of the confluent moun- 
tain waters that form inland seas and navigable streams. Let the peo- 
ple learn from the ancient history of veterinary medicine, as they can 
learn from recent events, that to dam the Mississippi and annihilate its 
waters is quite as easy a process as attempting to save a country from 
incalculable loss by the medical treatment of isolated cases of a specific 
and contagious cattle plague. 

Phat is the lesson which the want of knowledge regarding the lung 
plague in the first seventeen hundred years of the Christian era impresses 
upon us to-day. The wisdom of that conclusion may be demonstrated 
by tracing up the progress of the malady from 1693 to 1869. 

The first notice, that may be declared less unsatisfactory than all pre- 
ceding ones, of the ravages produced by an epizodtic bovine pleuro- 
pheumonia, we owe to Valentini.* There is a fact of great importance 
in relation to the history and progress of pleuro-pneumonia that writers 


* Writing with but a small selection of books from my library, Iam only in a position 
to give asecond-hand reference to Valentini’s observations, and theirimportance induces 
me to reproduce Hensinger’s quotation: “ Preecedente hyeme pluvioso, sed in fine geli- 
dissimo, sub primo vere et insolitus aéris fervor ingruebat, qualis et per omnem statis 
cursum observabatur; que mutatio subitanea non poterat non inequalem et preter- 
naturalem humorum et spirituum motum causare, quem et hominum et brutorum 
strages insecuta est. Boves sane et vacce catervatim succumbebant, cujus rei causa 
statuebatur inter alia ros corrosivus, lintea maculis plus minus luteis conspureans, et 
omnino corrodens. Ex carnificum observatione plerumque phthisi pulmonali necaban- 
tur, ad quam sine dubio haustus frigidse copiosior post szstum intensissumum multum 
contribuere poterat. Hominibus preter dysenteriam et febres maligna sub finem Junii 
et initium Augusti hic locorum infensa erat febris quedam intermittens, ut plurimum 
tertiana.” Ephem. Nat. Cur. et Sydenham. opp. ed Geneva, 1, p. 276—quoted in Re- 
cherches de Pathologie Comparée—Cassel, 1853, 


12 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


generally have overlooked. Valentini’s remarks, incomplete as they are, 
had been anticipated by numerous reports concerning the spread of the 
foot and mouth disease, or epizoédtic aphthz, from east to west. As 
contagious cattle diseases travel in the lines of communication estab- 
lished by war or trade, so do they appear together or in succession 
according to their nature, the length of their period of incubation, and 
the circumstances under which the movement of cattle is conducted. 

It will serve to clear up many points of doubt if this point is under- 
stood. Epizodtic aphthe, or the footand mouth disease, (Maul wu. Klauen- 
seuche of the Germans,) has a short latent stage of two or three days. 
It moreover spreads to all warm blooded animals, so that herds infected 
with contagious diseases might on their travels, as they often are, be 
seized by this malady, and then the steppe murrain or rinderpest, which 
has a latent stage of a week, or the lung plague which remains latent 
for a month, six weeks, or more, may break out wherever signs of com- 
munication between cattle of different parts have been furnished by 
the rapidly-evolving and curable aphthe. The poison of one disease 
does not counteract or prevent the accession of either of the two others, 
and one animal may in succession have the three maladies. In Ger- 
many, France, Holland, and England, the foot and mouth disease has 
usually preceded outbreaks of lung disease and even rinderpest. In 
America, this has not been the case, inasmuch as the voyage across the 
Atlantic has usually been sufficient to purge animals of the conta- 
gium of epizootic aphth, even if they had been shipped with the disease 
on them, which is not likely, from its very obvious and rapid manifest- 
ations. 

It is necessary to make one more remark here, which may serve to 
facilitate the accurate reading of the history of cattle plagues. Although 
the lung plague has undoubtedly prevailed more constantly, and pro- 
duced a total mortality greater than that due to the steppe murrain, 
nevertheless the rapid slaughter of cattle by rinderpest at once sets 
people to adopt repressive measures, and, both by killing and isolating 
the disease itself, tends to supersede other cattle plagues. When it enters 
a country like Great Britain, where all animals which had a slight chance 
of contamination from public markets were more or less infected with 
the virus of lung plague, rinderpest naturally reached those spots first, 
cleared the cattle out, and extinguished pleuro-pneumonia. 

Now we shall see that the history of the three maladies I have alluded 
to are inmany points practically inseparable, so far as their dissemina- 
tion in Europe is concerned, and this fact alone would suffice to induce 
me to refer to the American outbreaks separately. 

In 168687 the foot and mouth disease was noticed in Silesia and 
other parts of Eastern Europe. In 1695 Valentini described the coin- 
cident inflammation of the feet of cattle and aphthe in man.* And 


*Sub equinoctio autumnalia, augusto decrepito, inflammatio gingivarum, linguae et 
oris in hominibus, in brutis verum pedum inflammationes, obseryavi hinc inde.—Loc. Cit. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 13 


thus is it established, beyond doubt, that the influences operating in the 
transmission of contagious pleuro-pneumonia were at work then. Val- 
entini committed the common error of attributing the lung plague to 
the weather, but his reference to a wide-spread pulmonary disorder 
among cattle is sufficiently distinct to warrant our dissenting from Del- 
afond when he says that nothing can authorize the conclusion that the 
disease described by Valentini was the pleuro-pneumonia which prevails 
to-day among horned cattle. 

Sauberg, whose prize essay on the lung plague is worthy of the highest 
praise, draws attention to the fact that the propagation westward of 
the Russian murrain, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, 
directed the attention of the most learned naturalists and physicians 
to the investigation of the plagues of animals, and thus a marked 
influence was exerted in the development of veterinary science. 

Kanold, Steurlin, Ramazzini, Lancisi, Bates, Lanzoni, Sebroek, 
Fischer, Scheuchzer, Bottani, Muratori, Camper, Haller, and numerous 
others, have contributed to enrich the science of comparative pathology 
by references to outbreaks of epizodtic aphthe, lung plague, rinderpest, 
variolous fevers, carbuncular and other diseases, which committed great 
havoe up to the time that an illustrious Frenchman, Bourgelat, resolved 
to establish a college for the education of veterinary surgeons. All 
references to*the contagious pleuro-pneumonia are of little practical 
moment until we come to the labors of Bourgelat himself. He did not, 
it is true—as nobody ever did—on first studying this disease, recognize 
its contagious character. He met with it in Franche-Compté, where it 
had been known for years under the name of “‘murie.” He described it 
as distinguished by a short dry cough, much fever, great oppression, 
especially after an animal has eaten anything, loss of appetite, fetor 
of breath, dryness of nose, and sometimes discharge of thick whitish 
matter from the nostrils. His description of the pleuritic adhesions, 
the deposits of gelatinous layers of different colors around the lungs, 
the lividity and engorgement of the lungs, and distension of the chest 
by a reddish, frothy, sanious, or purulent liquid, is entirely satisfactory, 
and indicates how much in advance of his times Bourgelat was in his 
description of this malady. As there has been a disposition to revive 
the treatment of the lung plague by fumigations, I may mention that, 
among other remedies, Bourgelat recommended acetic acid to be used 
in this way. 

The malady which had thus stationed itself in France, had also estab- 
lished secure hold in other parts of Europe, and we learn of its preva- 
lence in 1743 in Zurich and the adjacent cantons of Switzerland. It 
continued to invade that country by importations from the grand duchy 
of Baden, and in 1773 the great physiologist, Haller, published the 
ablest memoir on this disease that appeared during the eighteenth 
century.* He spoke of it as a lung disease, beginning as an inflamma- 


*Abhandlung von der Viehseuche. Von Herrn. Alb. Haller. Bern, 1773. 


14 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


tion, which passes into gangrene, or at other times into abscess and ends 
ina true marasmus. “It is very wonderful,” he adds, “that among 
the many modern physicians who have written on this plague, which 
has been observed so generally and for so long, that they have not 
noticed the seat of the disease to be in the lungs.” Haller determined. 
its cause and said, “above all, we must abandon all hope that the lung 
disease is not a contagious disease. * * * * * Atall events, it is 
certain that in our land, as often as the lung plague has appeared 
among cattle, the origin of the disease has always been traced to the 
purchase of an animal from a suspected market, or to one brought 
from an infected district into our land. At other times our country 
people have fattened cattle with other cattle from infected parts.” 

It is hard to trace the course of a disease during periods when little 
attention was paid to comparative pathology. From 1774 to 1776 the 
lung plague prevailed in Istria and Dalmatia.* Epizodtie aphthe made 
steady inroads from eastern Europe into Austria and other parts of the 
continent. From 1778 to 1784 pleuro-pneumonia, no doubt very common 
in many countries, is specially referred to by Kauset and Orus as in 
Silesia and Istria. Its course during this and subsequent periods was 
involved in much obscurity, owing to the more alarming outbreaks of 
rinderpest, which absorbed the attention of scientific men, and also 
tended, by the wholesale and rapid destruction of herds, to Supersede the 
more insidious pleuro-pneumonia. Huzard and Vicq d’Azyr studied the 
malady in 1791, and report that in the years 1772, 1776, 1780, 1787, 
1789, 1791, and 1792 it raged among the milch cows of Paris and its 
neighborhood. Chabert described the malady in 1793, and recognized 
its contagious character, cautioning people against placing healthy 
cattle in communication with sick ones. Ioggia at that time studied 
the malady in Italy, and it prevailed in Baden during the years 1787, 
1788, 1792, 1794, and 1798. It is to be regretted that little or nothing 
was known of this disease, which no doubt prevailed in Russia during 
the last century; and we are left to draw our own inference as to its 
probable prevalence there, from indications of its introduction through 
Poland to Prussia, but more frequently into Austria, Wurtemberg, 
Switzerland, into northern Italy and France. 

Records of outbreaks during the present century are more satisfac- 
tory. Boganus studied the malady in Lithuania, and Jeuen first saw 
it in Russia in 1824. Haupt witnessed it repeatedly in Siberia, and 
Busse observed it in the neighborhood of St. Petersburg in 1843, 1844, 
1845, and 1850. 

The malady invaded Prussia from 1802 to 1810, and was described by 
Sick in Rudolphi’s Observations in Natural History and Medicine, 
published in Berlin, in 1804. Dieterichs witnessed it from 1815 to 1820, 
and Nogenfeld published in his work on the disease, official reports of 


*A Fanti, sopra Vepizoozia bovina in aleuni luoghi della Dalmazia. Modena, 1776. 
Heusinger also quotes memoirs of Orus and Lotti. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 15 


its manifestations in the Dantzig district from 1821 to 1831. Gielen saw 
the lung plague in 1832, at Blandenburg, and later, from 1857 to 1843, 
in Sachsen. Sauberg, whose prize essay I have so often quoted, enters 
into very minute details concerning the outbreaks of pleuro-pneumonia 
in the Rhine provinces of Prussia, from 1830 to 1840. Some idea of the 
extent of the losses he had to report on may be derived from the fact 
that in the single district of Diisseldorf ten thousand head of cattle 
were lost from pleuro-pneumonia in the eight years from 1832 to 1840. 
Gerlach has drawn attention to this subject in Prussia with peculiar dili- 
gence since 1835, and remarks that he has watched personally so many 
cases, in conjunction with historical researches, that he unhesitatingly 
pronounces in favor of the view that pleuro-pneumonia is never devel- 
oped spontaneously. 

The lung plague prevailed severely in Hanover in the years 1807, 1808, 
1809, 1810, 1812, 1817, 1818. In 1819 Hausmann suggested and per- 
formed experiments in the inoculation of the disease, which never 
resulted in practical good. Outbreaks continued to be recorded in Han- 
over at short intervals from 1820 to 1843, and it has never been alto- 
gether free since. . 

The malady appeared in Saxony in 1827, and has often raged there 
since, as shown in the writings of Haubner, and the observations made 
by Leisering, &e. 

In 1862 I made a careful study of the progress of pleuro-pneumonia 
towards the British isles through Holland, and it is from these two 
countries that the New World, Africa, and the Australian colonies have 
been contaminated within the past quarter of a century. 

The disease entered Holland, according to Numann, the director of 
the veterinary school at Utrecht, in 1833, by the importation of cattle 
affected with the disease from Prussia, and purchased by a distiller, 
Vandenbosch, in Gelderland. In 1835 it was transmitted from Gelder- 
land to Utrecht, thence into South Holland, and it raged especially near 
the great markets of Rotterdam and Schiedam. The island of Zeeland 
then began to suffer wherever cattle were injudiciously imported from 
South Holland, and some outbreaks were attributed to infected cattle 
from South Holland, North Brabant, and West Flanders. From im- 
portations of infected cattle, the lung disease attacked the stock on a few 
farms scattered through the provinces of Drenthe, Groningen, and Over- 
yssel. It was as late as 1842 that Friesland was attacked. British ports 
were thrown open to the cattle trade by Sir Robert Peel, and the demands 
of our markets caused a rush of stock through and from the northern 
provinces of Holland, which infected them in this year. The first traces 
of pleuro-pneumonia were observed at Nejiga and Wurms. The Dutch 
government ordered the slaughter of all the infected cattle, and Friesland 
again remained free of the disease until 1845. Then the British trade 
again increased ; cattle were passing from Overyssel to Harlingen, and 
in the month of December, 1845, the malady appeared at St. Nicolunsga, 


16 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


the following March at Mirus, and soon after at Enkhuysen. Prevention, 
by slaughtering diseased cattle, was enforced; the authorities in Over- 
yssel were asked to adopt similar measures, that there should be no re- 
newed introduction of disease from that province. The cattle trade was 
too active, and no sooner was the malady extinguished in one spot than 
it appeared at others. Inthe last half of the year 1847, the disease broke 
out in sixteen stables in sixteen different districts. A last attempt was 
made to arrest the malady, and seven hundred and three sick or sus- 
pected animals were killed and buried. Larger and larger did the num- 
ber of infected stables become as the cattle dealers’ movements increased. 
In 1848 fifty-eight different outbreaks occurred. By 1863 between five 
and six thousand out of the fourteen thousand stables in which cattle 
are kept in Friesland had been visited by the disease, and the annual 
mortality rose from 5.25 per thousand in 1850 to nearly 40 per thousand. 

It was probably somewhere between 1839 and 1841 that some Dutch 
cattle were imported into the county Cork, Ireland, by gentlemen related 
toa British consul at the Hague. This was before the days of free trade 
in stock, and the animals were introduced under some special permit. 
Customs of this early period have their representatives in county Cork at 
the present day, and my inquiries would lead me to believe that the 
earliest of these importations were followed by the manifestations of 
pleuro-pneumonia. It spread from Cork into Limerick in 1844, and thence 
to Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Wicklow, Meath, Galway, 
and Roscommon. The losses in Ireland have been enormous, and indeed 
much larger than in England and Scotland. The north of Ireland has 
been more free than the south, but in 1844 cattle were imported into 
county Tyrone from Glasgow, communicating the disease, which con- 
tinued till 1852. Londonderry suffered about 184950, and here and 
there in all other counties, not excluding Kerry, the introduction of the 
malady by traveling or purchased cattle has occurred. 

While the lung disease was thus lighting up in different parts of Ire- 
land, it was committing great ravages in England. All the large towns 
containing dairy cows suffered. Speedily did the disease pass from 
London to Manchester, and Birmingham to Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, 
and Neweastle. It was in the month of November, 1843, that English 
cattle carried the disease into Scotland at All-Hallow Fair, in Edinburgh. 
It speedily passed to Glasgow, Perth, and Aberdeen. In 1844 it reached 
Inverness, on cattle taken there by sea. Thus the large towns and their 
vicinities were first affected, but no great interval elapsed before farms 
were contaminated. The counties of Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, 
Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Northumberland were all affected by 1844 
and 1845. It was later that the disease entered the breeding districts of 
Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Devon. Cheshire lost early and 
much. In Scotland it was 1846 and 1847 before many districts in such 
counties as Lanarkshire and Ayrshire had the disease. It committed 
great ravages in Wigtown, Renfrew, Fife, Perth, Kincardine, and Aber- 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. RF 


deen shires. It has been rarely, and in afew farms, in such counties as 
Argyle, Banff, Inverness, and Caithness. 

The losses by pleuro-pneumonia have amounted during the past seven- 
and-twenty years to as high as two millions pounds sterling per annum, 
in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The best cattle 
have been destroyed, inasmuch as the breeding cows and young stocks 
in breeding districts beyond the range of infection never attain the value 
of the fine milech cows and fattened steers which exist in milk-produe- 
ing and fattening districts. I prepared a table of losses in 88 dairies in 
the city of Edinburgh, from the 1st of July, 1861 to the Ist of July, 1862, 
and out of 1,839 cows, 791 were sold diseased to butchers, and 284 were 
sold as food for pigs. The total value of the 1,075 diseased animals when 
first bought, at the very moderate average of £13 10s. each, is £14,512 10s. 
There was realized by their sale, calculating the value of the 791 sold to 
butchers at an average of £5 each, and the 284 sold for pig-feeding at 
10 shillings each, the sum of £4,097. The net annual loss by diseased 
cows in Edinburgh alone was therefore £10,415. Similar losses have 
oceurred in all other large cities, such as Dublin, London, Liverpool, New- 
castle, &e. 

From England and Holland the disease has been propagated far and 
wide. In1847 English cattle communicated pleuro-pneumonia to Sweden, 
and in 1848, it appears, from Sweden to Denmark. Mr. R. Fenger, a Dan- 
ish veterinarian, furnished me in 1862 with the following information: 
* As to the appearance of this disease in the kingdom of Denmark, it is 
an established fact that it has taken place only three times upon three 
different farms where cattle had been introduced from abroad. No other 
cattle were affected than those in the three herds alluded to, and for 
three years no disease has appeared in Denmark. As to the spontaneous 
origin of pleuro-pneumonia, I wish to draw your attention to the fact 
that it is never seen in the town of Copenhagen, notwithstanding that 
in this place large dairies are kept where the cows are fed on draff from 
distilleries, and are kept in a state contrary to any which sanitary 
rules might suggest. In the dukedom of Schleswig the disease has been 
imported several times, and last from England, and occasionally has 
spread rather widely. This autumn the cattle of thirty different places 
in Schleswig have been kept in a kind of quarantine. 

In 1858 an agricultural society in Oldenburgh puchased some Ayr- 
shires to distribute among its members for breeding purposes. Wher- 
ever these animals went they communicated disease. Oldenburgh has kept 
very free from pleuro-pneumonia from the activity with which the infected 
animals are destroyed at the outbreak of disease. The same remark 
applies to Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Schleswig-Holstein. With regard 
to the latter province, it transpires that in 1859 some Ayrshire cattle im- 
ported in the vicinity of Tondern communicated pleuro-pneumonia. 

In the month of August, 1860, an agent of the Norwegian govern- 
ment purchased a number of Ayrshire cattle; they were taken to the 
2 


ad 


18 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Royal Agricultural College at Aas, and in the commencement of Novem- 
ber pleuro-pneumonia broke out among them. Dr. Oluf Thesen has 
informed me that he limited the disease to the college, by destroying the 
native cattle with which the Ayrshire stock had come in contact, and 
keeping the Ayrshire animals to themselves. Norway had been exempt 
from this cattle plague, and owing to Professor Thesen’s activity it now 
enjoys the same immunity. 

In the month of September, 1858, Mr. Boodle, farmer, near Melbourne, 
imported a cow from England; she landed in good condition and gave 
milk. She died of pleuro-pneumonia six weeks after her arrival. Two 
other head of cattle belonging to Mr. Boodle died in December and 
another in January. The disease continued to spread, and the losses 
have been enormous and almost incessant in Victoria and even in New 
South Wales. 


HISTORY OF THE LUNG PLAGUE IN AMERICA. 


The first notice of the lung plague in the United States dates back to 
1843, when a German cow, imported direct from Europe, and taken from 
shipboard into a Brooklyn cattle shed, communicated the disease, which, 
it is said and believed, has prevailed more or less in Kings county, Long 
Island, ever since. 

In 1847 Mr. Thomas Richardson, of New Jersey, imported some Eng- 
lish stock. Signs of disease were noticed soon, and the whole of Mr. 
Richardson’s stock, valued at $10,000, were slaughtered by him to pre- 
vent an extension of the plague. 

In 1850 a fresh supply of the lung-plague poison reached Brooklyn 
from England in the system of an imported cow. 

Mr. W. W. Chenery, of Belmont, Massachusetts, has related the his- 
tory of the introduction of lung plague from Holland into Massachu- 
setts in 1859. Four cows were purchased for him at Purmerend and 
Beemster, shipped at Rotterdam early in April on board the bark J. C. 
Humphreys, which arrived in America on the 23d of May, 1859. Two 
of the cows were driven to Belmont; the other two had to be trans- 
ported on wagons, owing to their “extremely bad condition,” one of them 
“not having been on her feet during the twenty days preceding her arri- 
val.” On the 31st of May, it being deemed impossible that this cow 
could recover, she was slaughtered, and on the 2d of June following the 
second cow died. The third cow sickened on the 20th of June, and died 
in ten days. The fourth continued in a thriving condition. A Dutch 
cow, imported in 1852, was the next one observed ill, early in the month 
of August following, and she succumbed on the 20th. ‘Several other 
animals were taken sick in rapid succession, and then it was that the 
idea was first advanced that the disease was identical with that known 
in Europe as epizobtic pleuro-pneumonia.” Mr. Chenery then did all in 
his power to prevent the spread of disease from his farm. The last 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 19 


cease at the Highland farm, Belmont, occurred on the 8th of January, 
1860. 

In June, 1859, Curtis Stoddard, of North Brookfield, bought three 
young cattle, one bull and two heifers, from Mr. Chenery. One calf 
showed signs of sickness on the way home. Leonard Stoddard, father 
of Curtis, thinking he could better treat this sick calf, took it to his own 
barn, where he had forty-eight head, exclusive of calves, and with which 
the calf mingled. One animal after another was attacked, till the 12th 
of April, when thirteen head had died, and most of the remainder were 
sick. The disease continued to spread from farm to farm as rapidly 
as circumstances favored the adinixture of stock. The period of incu- 
bation in well-defined cases varied from nineteen to thirty-six days, and 
averaged twenty-six and two-thirds days. 

The people of Massachusetts, a little slow at first, overcame the delays 
incident to legislation, established a commission for the purpose of exter- 
minating the disease, and an appropriation of $10,000 was placed under 
the control of the commissioners on the 4th of April, 1860. The disease 
was gaining ground rapidly, and a bill to extirpate the disease passed 
its several stages and was approved on the same day. Commissioners 
were appointed; herds were examined by surgeons, and, if infected, 
slaughtered; the animals pronounced healthy at the time of inspection 
were paid for; all the money appropriated was spent, and such was the 
feeling then in Massachusetts that private gentlemen made themselves 
responsible for a second amount of nearly $20,000. An extra session of 
the legislature met on the 15th of May. Fresh powers were sought and 
obtained, additional commissioners were appointed, and the disease was 
apparently exterminated. It reappeared in 1861, anew board of commis- 
sioners was appointed, and further successful efforts were made to prevent 
the disease. On the 24th of December, 1863, Mr. Charles L. Flint, in a 
letter to Governor Andrew, asserted that pleuro-pneumonia still existed 
in twelve or fifteen towns of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Mr. 
K. T. Thayer, to whom the people of Massachusetts owe much for his 
skill and industry as the veterinary commissioner, and Mr. Charles P 
Preston, wrote their final report to the senate and house of representa- 
tives of Massachusetts on the 30th of December, 1867. In that report, 
in tendering their resignations to the governor, they congratulate the 
people on the suecess which had been insured by efficient co-operation 
“in eradicating one of the worst forms of contagious disease which has 
been found among cattle.” 

From numerous inquiries there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that 
the lung disease has continued, ever since its first introduction, to attack 
some of the numerous dairies on Long Island. One of the best informed 
dairymen in Brooklyn informed me that, three months after starting in 
business sixteen years ago, he lost eleven out of twelve cows he had 
purchased in Newark, New Jersey. He bought more and began to 
inoculate with excellent results. Other people were losing, and he 


20 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


established himself on Jamaica Pond to be clear of every one. When 
he stopped inoculating the disease reappeared. Mr. Benjamin Babbit, 
of Lafayette avenue, was the first to inoculate after the introduction 
of this practice in Europe, and many dairymen adopted it. The board 
of health opposed the practice, as many of the cows lost portions of the 
tail, and reports were made of blood and matter finding their way into the 
milk-pail. The disease has never ceased, and I have visited many dairies, 
in all of which at one time or another, and in most of which during the 
present year, the disease has prevailed. In five dairies I examined, within 
one hundred yards of each other, I found one or two sick cows in each. 
The Hartford Insurance Company, which has recently suspended opera- 
tions, lost heavily on the insurance of cows from the prevalence of this 
disease, and that company objected also to the practice of inoculation. 

From Mr. Bedell’s statement, there is no doubt of the existence of the 
contagious pleuro-pneumonia in New Jersey when he first bought his 
cattle. Mr. Robert Jennings, veterinary surgeon, had his attention 
drawn to the disease on its appearance in Camden and Gloucester coun- 
ties, New Jersey, in the year 1859. In 1860 it crossed the Delaware 
river into Philadelphia, spreading very rapidly in all directions, partic- 
ularly in the southern section of the county known as “The Neck”— 
many of the dairymen losing from one-third to one-half of their herds. 
The sale of sick cattle continued, as it always does, unless prevented by 
rigid laws. In 1861 the malady appeared in Delaware, and in Burling- 
ton county, New Jersey, and the disease could be distinctly traced to the 
Philadelphia market. 

The records of outbreaks are by no means satisfactory, but a gentle- 
man well known in Maryland, Mr. Martin Goldsborough, informs me that 
the malady has been very destructive on many farms of that State for the 
past three years. Individuals have lost their entire herds, in some cases 
numbering twenty-four, thirty, and as high as forty-seven head. Last year 
an effort was made to direct the attention of the legislature of Maryland to 
the subject, with a view to the adoption of successful measures, but with- 
out effect. Mr. Goldsborough’s statement is to the effect that the disease 
in Maryland is due to the purchase of cattle in the Philadelphia market. 

There is no doubt of the great prevalence of the malady for some years 
in Pennsylvania. J have seen it on two farms in Delaware county, and 
it has been on several others recently. Bucks county has suffered much 
for two years. A correspondent informs me that in March, 1867, a drove of 
cows was taken into that county, and one of them was observed to be sick. 
These animals were distributed among the farmers, and soon the plague 
appeared in all directions. An effort was made then to secure the aid of 
the State legislature, without effect, and to this day the disease is in 
Bucks county. The last case I have to report is at Newtown, Bucks 
county, where the disease was introduced by cows bought in the Phil- 
adelphia market. 

That the malady has attained such proportions as to demand constant 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. at 


attention, apart from the fact that but one case on the whole continent 
is a source of incalculable danger, is proved by a circular recently issued 
by gentlemen in Westchester, Pennsylvania, and which is of sufficient 
importance to be reproduced here : 

Pleuro-pneumonia.—The great increase in the disease known as pleuro-pneumonia 
among cattle within a few years past, its highly contagious character, and the acknow- 
ledged inability of the most skillful veterinary surgeons to control or in the least miti- 
gate its severity in certain stages of the disease, calls for immediate and earnest atten- 
tion from the community. It is a well-known fact that the cupidity of many induces 
them as soon as the disease develops itself on their premises to hurry off their stock 
(diseased as well as those not diseased) to the nearest drove-yard, to be there sold for 
whatever they will bring; to be either sold as food or driven off to new sections, and 
there to infect and poison other animals with which they may come in contact. 

With the view of arresting this increasing and wide-spreading evil, the undersigned, 
a committee of the “Mutual Live Stock Insurance Company of Chester county,” an 
institution established purely for mutual assistance and protection, respectfully invite 
your co-operation in procuring such action at the hands of our next legislature, by the 
passage of a law authorizing the appointment of a suitable number of qualified and con- 
scientious inspectors throughout the State, whose duty it shall be to examine thoroughly 
all animals, especially those offered for sale, wherever they may be; and subjecting 
those offering such diseased animals to both fine and imprisonment, and to take such 
other measures as may be deemed necessary to effect the entire extirpation of the dis- 
ease from our midst. 

I can corroborate the statements made as to the sale of cattle that are 
infected. Not only has this occurred often where the disease has been 
most rife for years past, as on Long Island, but recently, in making 
inquiries in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, I learned of three cows 
which had been sold “healthy” (?) out of an infected herd. Such a prac- 
tice explains the progress of the disease even further south than Maryland. | 

I have been informed that the malady has traveled as far west as 
Kentucky and Ohio, but of this I have not been enabled in the brief tine 
since I commenced the inquiry to obtain satisfactory evidence. I have 
taken some pains to ascertain if the disease had reappeared in Massa- 
chusetts, and personal inquiries in various parts of the State show that 
it is quite free from the disease, thanks to the energy of its people and 
the enlightened action of its legislature. 

The conclusions that are warranted by the facts 1 have gleaned are as 
follows: 

First. That the lung plague in cattle exists on Long Island, where it 
has prevailed for many years; that it is not uncommon in New Jersey ; 
has at various times appeared in New York State; continues to be very 
prevalent in several counties of Pennsylvania, especially in Delaware and 
Bucks; has injured the farmers of Maryland, the dairymen around Wash- 
ington, D.C., and has penetrated into Virginia. 

Second. That the disease travels wherever sick cattle are introduced, 
and that the great cattle-rearing States of the west, which may not at 
present be entirely free from the disease, have been protected by the fact 
that they sell rather than buy and import horned stock. 

Third. There are no proper restrictions on the sale of infected stock, 

° 


22 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


and in another year or two, unless some definite and immediate action 
shall be taken, the disease is likely to find its way into so many parts of 
the country that its eradication will be almost a matter of impossibility. 

Of all the cattle diseases pleuro-pneumonia is in the long run the most 
destructive, because the most insidious and the least likely to rouse a 
people to united action for its effectual suppression. To ignore its pres- 
ence is, however, to insure that the cattle mortality of America, like 
that of England, will be at least doubled within a few years. Rational 
means, energetic action, and earnest co-operation between the different 
States and the central government, may, with a moderate expenditure 
now, save many millions annually in the not distant future. 

For three years past the city of Washington, and, indeed, the whole 
District of Columbia, with adjoining parts of Maryland and Virginia, 
have been seriously affected with the lung plague. It is gleaned from 
the contractors who clean the city of the carcases of dead animals, that 
it is not uncommon to have several dead cows in a day from the Wash- 
ington dairies; that a dozen a week has not been unusual, during cer- 
tain seasons, and that the supply is constant. Unfortunately, as in other 
cities of America and Europe, the prevalence of pleuro-pneumonia results 
in a wholesale traffic in such animals. Sick cows are sold to butchers, and 
if in good condition command thirty to sixty dollars; others that are 
too lean are taken in the early stage, mixed with other stock, and sent 
by railroad to Baltimore, to be sold as stock cows to farmers. In fact, 
the active and unremittent traffic in sick cattle insures that Washington, 
theneighborhood of Alexandria, in Virginia, and Baltimore, will continue 
to be great breeding centers of pleuro-pneumonia. Some idea of the heavy 
losses in the Washington district may be gleaned from an annexed table, 
prepared by a Washington dairyman. (See appendix at close of this 
report.) 


SIGNS OR SYMPTOMS DURING LIFE. 


It is necessary to draw special attention to the fact that in States or 
on farms where the lung plague has never before existed it is the more 
readily recognized, in the earlier stages, as in case of other epizootics, 
the more complete the history. The fact that cattle have been recently 
purchased, or that drift cattle have crossed the farm or prairie, the 
knowledge of the existence of such a disease in adjoining States or 
farms, or of sick cattle being sold by auctions or in the markets, are all 
most important elements in guiding to a correct conclusion as to the 
nature of the disease. 

Very frequently an animal is bought, placed among others, dies, and 
the remaining cattle cough, get out of condition, and some soon sicken. 
The purchased animal may show no signs of illness however; it may be 
suffering from a latent form of the disease, or it may be in the conyales- 
cent stage, and gaining flesh daily. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 24 


A dairyman, especially in a large town, may have had pleuro-pneumo- 
nia among his cattle, which had subsided, and his stock, composed of 
animals that had withstood the disease, might be regarded as healthy. 
But some still discharge a degree of poison and infect the atmosphere, 
and a newly bought animal dates the period of the incubation of the 
malady from the moment it entered the stable. 

The incubation of the disease may be said to vary from eight or nine 
days to three or four months. In the inoculated malady the exudation 
commences sometimes as early as the fifth day, more commonly about 
the ninth or twelfth, and it may be as late as thirty and forty days. In 
the disease communicated by cohabitation a cough, to which very special 
attention was drawn by the experiments of the French commission on 
contagion, supervenes about the ninth day and later. It is usually 
noticed by cow-feeders, who buy cows which have just calved, that they 
drop with the disease about the time they should manifest cestrum, that 
is to say, six weeks after their admission. » 

There are false and true periods of incubation of the lung plague, 
and this has been overlooked too much in descriptions of the disease. 
The actual incubation is from the period of contamination, by contact or 
inoculation, to the moment that a special morbid change commences. 
Our means of observation have not been exact enough, and it is very 
desirable that thermometric observations should be made on experimental 
animals, and these, with the ordinary phenomena derived by auscultation, 
&c., will assure us of the actual length of the stage of the lung disease 
which is unattended by any appreciable sign. We shall then know the 
true period of incubation. The false periods of incubation are those 
derived by persons from observing an animal to sicken, say four months 
after purchase, and drawing the conclusion that that represents the in- 
cubation stage. As arule in such a case two or three latent instances 
of the disease have preceded the obvious one. Then, again, the period of 
incubation is not usually stated correctly by farmers, as they overlook 
the first signs of the disease, which occur several days before cessation 
of appetite, secretion of milk, &e. 

Invasion of the lung plague is characterized by local phenomena which 
most frequently show themselves by the cough already referred to. 
With one of Casella’s self-registering thermometers it will be found that 
in an infected herd some animal or animals in apparent health, which no 
one suspects to be diseased, will manifest a temperature of 104° or 105° 
Fahrenheit. I have never seen a case in which, when the temperature 
was thus elevated, I could not detect friction sounds, loud respiratory 
murmurs, especially at the lower part of the trachea and involving one 
lung. It is not a little remarkable to notice the want of faith of some 
persons who watch the separation of such cattle, with great doubt as to 
the correctness of the observation. In rinderpest the elevation of tem- 
perature occurs before all other signs, and to a less marked extent this 
is the same with splenic fever; but in pleuro-pneumonia there is reason 


24 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


to believe that acute observation would reveal first the local change 
and then the fever. 

In order to show the value of the thermometer in this disease, I sub- 
join the observations made by me on two herds of cows suffering from it, 
and which I inoculated on the 26th of February, 1869, at Alexandria: 


MR. REID’S COWS. MR. BIEMULLER’S COWS. 
No. Fahrenheit. No. » Fahrenheit, 
Hihs 2 sad Getler: Lal Moe 88 LO ST seh ee cee eee eae mimee Chl eee 101.4 
Dp ae ieee. oi a dep. 8 TORS Hy) QS wy Aa eR eee 102 
Rei Mitel cad toed aby edi ok ars A hae TODSGHL, #3) 18 lee ee hs Se a eh ae a 102 
Ati ae ny Mee CRN eel Serge DOD A || pe 5 vn cache Fie Bae ode dae ee 101 
LAE SERNA SPUN SONS MOORE RIDIN Sh PE 101 Lee Rage) NETRA ie ona 101.6 
(CRE eRe stir Dee oer epee Rise p lero Beye 102.2 02 ete eee ete aol ne ee 102.3 
[pose § SPORE EAB ALL decel bages tal he 102 ON ore ORT ee oe 102 
Cees EATS CED 101.8 BL AAR LRA We. OF CE ah RAL 101.8 
Oeste uy tes a Bega wey Ayal Byes 102 Ot ah Aen here 104.4 
TO) Sess a Se Senn aR nT ae ARTE ge a O58 SiO bs asp tlt pg. ly i ee a 102.6 
Lb Pare ga Coe, te Seah eee. OO eee We POO ices ne ele a Re aah a 101 
11 asp hhc lee Nac nur Visiige cova Yea hing 0 De Ne i elit eee acts ae 102 
1 Les al hee ea me yaad AINE 6 OS | TS cee ees | ae ee 101.6 
TARE Dae le. sell tS ebay. LOB) yig hee! «Sieve acai LOPES ieee ee 105.6 
Sep SP i ne DVN gg ey Boy Ta ee 10056;|| 1bteexe lh: Ro Bele 103.6 
UG ee ee ee Onan eee Aes 8 | iG ser tes lh. 3 A uci ook ear ee 101.3 
11a EE the: SNe OO ea 102.2 | Vos oe ek oe 101 
TISkuesé, . Sees A ies bi plac Abia a TOT il AS esses fo yo ee ee 101.3 
L1G acai i La del nd Sate hdl le LOZIG NAG eee eee eee 104.4 
Oe neh nar LAS Pe AES LE 101 GO th: POR IG Pek RI eG ke 102.2 
Ost erate! uaa Sie ihe) ay eh eR eoe ial 101 


Of Reid’s cows, Nos. 11 and 14 were sick, and of Biemiiller’s, Nos. 9, 14, 
15, and 19. Some doubt exists as to No. 19; I had not opportunity of 
seeing her again. Mr. Reid thinks she might have been at heat, but 
from the indications, however slight, associated with the elevation of 
temperature, I believe it was one of the numerous latent cases which the 
thermometer alone reveals to us. Nos. 14 and 15 were in the earliest 
Stage of the malady, and both grew worse, suffered for three weeks, and 
then recovered. 


OBVIOUS PREMONITORY SIGNS. 


The obvious premonitory signs are shivering fits, as in ordinary fever, 
but their transient and mild character lead to their often being passed 
unnoticed. The animal's coat looks dull, staring, and the skin is often 
rigid. An occasional cough of a dry and harsh character is noticed, 
and, when inspecting a herd in a field, if the cattle are made to move 
briskly, several will be found to cough. For some days the cattle appear 
to thrive well, and milch cows yield a copious amount of milk. It has 
been remarked that they appear full—indeed fuller in the early morning 
than other animals which, like them, had not fed since the previous 
evening. The excrement is dry and urine somewhat scanty. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 25 


An expert dairymaid in the habit of milking cows where the disease 
prevails is apt to notice, as the malady declares itself, that there is some 
stiffness, and the milk is not so freely drawn as usual. The quantity of 
this secretion then diminishes. 

The progress of the malady is then characterized by loss of appetite, 
altered gait, segregation of the sick from the healthy in the field, the sick 
standing with their elbows turned outward, their feet drawn forward, 
neck and head extended, and nostrils somewhat convulsively expanded 
at each inspiration. There is quickness of breathing, especially if the 
animal is even slightly disturbed, and on the slightest movement there 
is an audible grunt. The expression of countenance indicates uneasiness 
or absolute pain, and the eyes are prominent and fixed. The pulse rises 
to seventy, eighty, and even one hundred beats per minute. In hot cow 
sheds the pulse is more frequent than in the open field in healthy cattle, 
and a corresponding increase is seen in this disease under similar cir- 
cumstances. The respirations rise to thirty-five and forty per minute, 
are labored, audible, and each expiration is often associated with a short 
characteristic grunt. This grunt is especially marked if the sides of the 
chest or the spine are pressed; and many years ago Lecoq showed that 
graziers regarded this as a decisive symptom of the malady. A some- 
what watery discharge from the nose, increased in the act of coughing, 
is noticed early in the disease, and driving sick cattle in the earliest stage 
produces much thirst, and there is a ropy saliva discharged from the 
mouth. The muzzle is hot and dry. 

Cattle suffering from this disease are readily identified as it advances 
by persons having seen a few cases. They stand motionless, with pro- 
truding head, arched back, extended fore limbs, with elbows turned as 
far out as they can be held, and the hind limbs drawn under them, with 
knuckling at the near hind or both hind fetlocks. When lying, especially 
in the latter stages of the disease, they rest on their brisket or lie on the 
affected side, leaving the ribs on the healthy side of the chest as much 
freedom of motion as possible. 

As the disease advances the pulse gets more frequent and feeble, and 
the heart’s beats, which are at first subdued, become marked and palpi- 
tating, as in cases of poverty or anemia. The membranes of the eyes, 
mouth, and vagina are usually pallid, though the membrane of the nose 
is often red. The tongue is foul, covered with fur, and the exhaled 
breath has a nauseous and even fetid odor. 

Listlessness, grunting, grinding of teeth, diminished secretions, weak- 
ness and emaciation, increase with the progress of the malady. The 
animals getting weak, lie more. They sometimes show symptoms of 
jaundice, have a tendency to hove or tympanitis from gases accumulating 
in the paunch, and their gait is so staggering that they appear to suffer 
from partial paralysis of the hind quarters. As all these aggravated 
symptoms declare themselves the pulse gets weak, and often rises to one 
hundred and twenty per minute; the breathing gets more frequent and 


26 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


labored; the animal gasps for breath. The spasmodic action of the 
nostrils is very marked, the grunt very audible, and there is a peculiar 
puckering of the angles of the mouth. The temperature, which is ele- 
- vated during the acute stage of the disease, is irregularly up and down, 
according to the complications of the disease, and there is great tendency 
to coldness of the horns and extremities. Abortion is not an uncommon 
accident. The constipation, which is a very common symptom of the 
lung disease, is apt to be followed by diarrhea in the later stages, and 
this is also associated with a considerable discharge of clear-colored 
urine. 

Auscultation and percussion are valuable aids in the diagnosis of lung 
plague. Most persons can, with a little care, distinguish the sick from 
healthy cattle by listening to the sides of the chest. It does not requiré 
a skillful expert to recognize that the ribs are motionless and flattened 
over the consolidated lung, that there is an absence of resonance on 
striking the ribs over the affected region, and that the ear distinguishes 
a very distinct respiratory murmur wherever the lung is pervious, and 
an absence of this sound where the lung is transformed into a solid mass. 

At an early stage of pleuro-pneumonia there is a harsh sound, roar, or 
rhonchus, produced by the passage of air through the windpipe and its 
subdivisions. This varies in intensity in different cases, as some animals 
have more exudation on the mucous surface of the air passage than 
others, and the leathery-looking shreds of lymph adhering to the inflamed 
membrane vibrate as the air rushes past them and give rise to the harsh 
sound which may sometimes be heard by persons standing by a sick ani- 
mal. In many cases one lung alone is affected, and then the respiratory 
murmur is more distinct than in health, wherever the lung tissue is per- 
vious, whereas there is a total absence of sound over the consolidated 
organ. Occasionally an air passage remains open through a mass of 
hardened lung, and the air rushing through this rigid bronchial tube 
makes a very decided whistling noise. 

In the earliest stages of pleuro-pneumonia the deposit of lymph on the 
serous covering of the ribs and lungs produces a leathery-friction sound, 
and as liquid accumulates in one or both cavities of the chest the respira- 
tory murmur is lost towards the lower part of the affected side or sides, 
and it is alone distinct over the upper portions of pervious lung tissue. 

A careful examination of the chest reveals day by day the progress of 
the disease. When one lung is affected an animal is much more likely 
to recover than when both are diseased. Portions of the diseased lung 
tissue are apt to die, and becoming detached or softened, produce cavi- 
ties in the lungs, which are indicated by a cavernous rale or sound some- 
what similar to that produced by blowing air in the hollow of the hands 
when closed against each other. 

By careful auscultation the eases that tend to convalescence may be 
distinguished by less marked roughness in the inspirations, and a gradual 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. i 


though slow return of the respiratory murmur, with increased mobility 
of the ribs and easier movement of the flanks. 


TERMINATION. 


Cases of lung diseases in cattle end in partial or complete restoration 
to health, or death by prostration, suffocation, purulent fever, or hectic. 

As a rule, when a herd of cattle: has suffered from the contagious 
pleuro-pneumonia, the surviving animals, whenever slaughtered, show 
old adhesions, partial collapse of the lung tissue, atrophy or wasting of 
the lung, thickness of the heart’s covering or pericardium, and sometimes 
chronie abscess.. Complete recovery without leaving the slightest traces 
of pre-existing lesion occurs. It has been noticed that cattle that have 
once had pleuro-pneumonia fatten more readily than others. 

Death supervenes during the acute attacks of the disease from shock, 
prostration, or gradual suffocation. When animals linger on for some 
time in the bloodless state peculiar to this disease, and which is mainly 
due to the great drain on the system by the immense discharge which 
occurs in the substance of the lung and cavities of the chest, a perma- 
nent impairment of the functions of nutrition or assimilation occurs, 
and although the appetite may be partially restored, emaciation advances, 
and the animal sinks. A terrible diarrhea or dysentery usually accom- 
panies this form of disease. 

In other cases abscesses form in and around the lungs and in other 
parts of the body, and the animals die of purulent infection. Occasion- 
ally a cavity formed by the breaking up of diseased lung tissue commu- 
nicates with the pleural sac or cavity of the chest, and a condition known 
to pathologists as empyema results, to the certain destruction of the 
animal. 


- DURATION OF THE DISEASE. 


Affected animals usually pass through an incubative stage varying 
from twenty to eighty days, and usually averaging from twenty-five to 
forty days. The acute stage of the disorder varies from seven to twenty- 
one days. Convalescence extends over a period of one, two, and even 
three months, during the greater part of which the convalescent animal 
is often capable of infecting healthy cattle. 

The mortality varies from one to ninety per cent. of the affected ani- 
mals. When a first case is isolated early, all the remaining animals may 
continue to enjoy health. As a rule, in mild outbreaks, the mortality 
obtains twenty-five per cent., and in severe cases sixty, seventy, eighty, 
and even one hundred per cent. 

In England the lung disease has doubled the usual cattle mortality of 
the country, and during many years fifty per cent. of the cattle that 
have died of disease have died of the contagious lung disease. 


28 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


LATENT FORM. 


It is necessary that I should draw special attention to the large num- 
ber of cases which run an insidious course and pass unobserved. These 
are the most dangerous, as less care is paid to their isolation. 


APPEARANCES AFTER DEATH. 


Animals that are slaughtered, or are permitted to die in advanced 
stages of the lung plague, present the following characteristics: 

The internal changes are confined almost entirely to the chest. On 
opening this, by splitting the brisket, as the animal lies on its back, 
layers of yellowish, friable, false membrane, of varying tenacity, stretch 
across around the sae (pericardium) containing the heart. These adhe- 
sions exist on one or both sides of the chest, and are sometimes alto- 
gether absent. They are found bathed in a yellowish, grumous fluid or 
serum, highly charged with albumen and shreds of solid deposit. Por- 
tions of one or both lungs are found more or less firmly adhering to the 
membrane (pleura) covering the ribs and diaphragm, and in passing the 
hands, especially round the large posterior lobes of either lung, it is 
difficult, in advanced stages of the disorder, to detach the diseased por- 
tions of the organ from the ribs. 

The false membranes, disposed in layers which may be stripped off 
the pulmonary surface, are found adhering more or less closely to it, and 
the membrane (pleura) covering the lung, which is usually smooth and 
glistening, is rough, of a mottled color, and with more or less marked 
papillary or warty-looking eminences. These are the vascular offshoots 
of the membrane feeding the deposit around, and in time the process of 
growth and formation of vascular or blood-carrying tissue may lead to 
as solid a connection between the lung and the sides of the chest as 
between healthy tissues. Such complete development is only seen in 
very chronic cases, or animals that have recovered from the disease. 

The fluid around one or both lungs varies in amount from a few ounces 
to several gallons. At times itis tolerably clear when warm, and gelatin- 
izes on cooling. At others it is difficult to separate it from the shreds 
of lymph and false membranes in the meshes of which it is held. Pus 
cells frequently abound in it, and it assumes in a few cases the character 
of pus. It is especially purulent when abcesses have formed in the gan- 
grenous lung tissue, and an opening has led to communication between 
the lung tissue and the pleural sac. Under these circumstances, the 
fetor noticed on opening the chest is intolerable. 

On removing the lungs, great variations in extent, but uniformity in 
essential appearances, of disease exist. 

In recent and mild cases, one lung is found affected. Its surface may 
be smooth from the absence of deposit around it. Parts of the organ 
are collapsed, as in health, and the usual normal pink color is noticed. 
The affected part is swollen, hard, and mottled. On cutting into this, 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 29 


the older. diseased portions present a very peculiar marbled or tesselated 
character. The substance of the lobules is solid and of a dark red color, 
and the tissue between the lobules is of a yellowish red, more or less 
spotted with red points, but sometimes of almost pure yellowish white 
color. 

The more recent deposits are distinguished mainly by a lighter red 
color of the thickened lobules, and there are gradations from this con- 
dition to that in which the lobules are but slightly infiltrated with semi- 
liquid serum, and air still passes more or less into their air vesicles. 

As the disease advances, the extent of solidified and darkened lung 
increases, and portions of the lung tissue lose more or less the marbled 
appearance, from the blood-staining of the interstitial deposit. The con- 
solidation of structures advances so that the blood vessels are obstruct- 
ed, the diseased lung loses all means of nourishment, and the older, 
darker, and more solid portions become detached, so that they remain 
as foreign bodies imbedded in cavities in the diseased tissue. The admis- 
sions of air through the air passages into these cavities by dissolution 
of the lung tissue, lead to the cavernous sounds which the ear can detect 
in the living animal, and the broken-up tissue decomposes and induces 
great fetor of the breath. 

One lung may have several points diseased; each lobe may be affected 
and little or no communication between the several parts implicated. 
The great tenacity of a yellowish white deposit around a marked mar- 
bled center of disease has been said to indicate a certain tendency to 
limitation by the formation of a capsule, and several encapsulated cen- 
ters may be found. 

On taking a warm diseased lung, severing thé still healthy portions, 
making incisions into the parts solidified, and suspending them so that 
they may drain, a large amount of yellowish serum of a translucent 
character, almost wholly free or more or less tinged with blood, is 
obtained to the extent of pounds in weight. The amount varies with 
weight of diseased lung drained. The quantity of this and of the solidi- 
fied deposit in a diseased lung is so large, that from a normal weight of four 
or five pounds, a lung attains to ten, twenty, forty, and I have seen one 
as high as fifty-four pounds in weight. 


AIR PASSAGES. 


The condition of the air passages varies from a condition of perfect 
freedom down to the diseased portions of lung, to a state in which the 
mucous membrane is coated with false membrane or solid exudations of 
lymph. By suitable means it is not difficult to isolate the solid white 
lymph clogging the terminal bronchial tubes and air vesicles in the con- 
solidated tissues, but at a distance from these parts it is only in some 
cases that a kind of croupy complication exists. I have seen an animal 
gasping for breath, with its mouth open, nostrils widely expanded, eyes 
prominent, and visible mucous membranes of a bluish red color; on 


30 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


opening the air passages of this cow after death, they were found 
throughout their whole extent nearly filled with a deposit similar to 
that usually found on the surface of the diseased lung. 

There is little necessity for prolonging this description of cadaveric 
manifestations. The heart’s sac is sometimes thickened by deposits 
around it. Not unfrequently it contains an excess of serum. The heart 
itself is contracted and pale, containing a little dark blood. The organs 
of digestion at different stages manifest a state of dryness. The third 
stomach, which is so constantly packed with dry food in febrile diseases, 
is in the same condition in pleuro-pneumonia. I have known the mu- 
cous layers spotted with irregular or circular congestions or blood extra- 
vasations, and the membrane softening in these parts has become per- 
forated. In advanced cases there is more or less diffuse redness, and 
even blood extravasations in the large intestine, with fluid, fetid and 
sometimes slightly blood-stained excrement, such as is discharged during 
life. 

The anemia—or bloodless condition of other tissues—the dark, dry look 
of the meat dressed by the butcher, the yellow color of the fat in some 
cases, and the small quantity of fat left in animals that have succumbed 
under a chronic attack, are all general signs of greater or less value, 
when taken in conjunction with the changes occurring in the chest 


THE CAUSES OF THE LUNG PLAGUE. 


The facts which have been adduced in the foregoing pages would seem 
sufficient to set at rest discussions as to the causes hitherto alleged as 
giving rise to the spontaneous development of contagious pleuro-pneu- 
monia. Nevertheless we have seen that wherever the malady appears 
for the first time the relation of its undoubted cause and effect is usually 
overlooked. Many circumstances tend to obscure the observations even 
of experts, and it is more particularly in large cities, where the disease is 
most common and observers more numerous, that conditions mislead and 
have misled. With a view therefore to impede the renewal of false 
theories which have up to the present day insured the steady reproduc- 
tion and propagation of this bovine pest, it may be well to enter into 
details under three heads: 

1st. The alleged original causes of the lung plague. 

2d. Contagion and infection. 

od. Conditions favoring or insuring communication of the disease by 
actual contact or approach. 


THE ALLEGED ORIGINAL CAUSES OF THE LUNG PLAGUE. 


Man at all times and in virtue of a strong instinct theorizes on the 
why and the wherefore of everything. Valentini, in his records of the 
lung disease, overlooking altogether many points which, with the know- 
ledge of the present day, enable us to interpret correctly the phenomena 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. Bt 


he observed, ascribed the lung plague to atmospheric agencies and unsea- 
sonable weather. Haller, a shrewd observer and great philosopher, 
adopted an inductive system of research, and, arguing from his own 
sphere of observation, declared, in words which deserve to be written in 
gold, that so far as his district was concerned the disease appeared always 
to be imported. He did not hide the truth under a load of wild and fan- 
ciful theories in attempting to explain more than he saw and could judge 
of personally. 

Siace the establishment of veterinary colleges in France, two theories 
have been and to a certain extent continue to be advocated. Chabert 
regarded the bovine pleuro-pneumonia so common in the dairies of Paris 
as contagious, whereas Huzard held the contrary opinion. The field of 
discussion widened, and it came to be very widely admitted that acute 
affections of the chest were contagious, and the chronic forms incapable 
of communication from the sick to the healthy. Not only was this 
believed of pulmonary complaint among cattle; it was also accepted 
with reference to glanders in the horse. 

Delafond, though an able advocate of the contagiouscharacter of pleuro- 
pneumonia in 1844, had previously entertained grave doubts on the ques- 
tion. Even in his classical work on the disease, while advancing a large 
mass of invaluable information demonstrating how in truth the malady 
extends, his usual desire to round off and complete his works led him to 
theorize and err as to the origin of what he calls “spontaneous pleuro- 
pneumonia” in cattle. This expression is not applied by him to an ordi- 
nary attack of infamniation of the lungs, which no one ever ascribes to 
contagion, but to the lung plague. The local or determining causes of 
the spontaneous form of this disease he summarizes as follows: 

A. Heat and impure atmosphere of stablesin which cattle live for five 
or six months of the year, especially when this heat, this impurity, are 
combined with a very nutritive aliment that produces much blood. 

B. Abundant milk secretions, required from cows in certain localities, 
either for the sale of milk or of butter and cheese. 

C. Chills of the skin and respiration by cold, humid, misty air, on pas- 
tures, either during spring or autumn; the introduction of cold air in the 
lungs in winter on taking animals from the stables to be watered. 

D. The glacial waters which cattle are compelled to drink in winter, 
and the unhealthy waters of marshes which they have to take in summer. 

HK. The hard work to which work cattle are subjected in summer in 
clearing forests, We. 

I". Lastly, hereditary predisposition. 

All this classified blundering might ve disposed of in one sentence, by 
asserting the truth, that the experience of ages has shown in many parts 
of the world, that all these causes, singly and combined, have failed to 
induce a case of pleuro-pneumonia. Whether we examine the agricul- 
tural annals of Scotland or Spain, of Canada or Texas, of South America 
or Australia, it will be found that alternations of temperature, chills, 


32 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICWLTURE. 


breathing the pure air of heaven as near the north pole as cattle have 
reached, drinking the frozen waters of North America or the stagnant 
pools in the swamps of the Carolinas and Louisiana during the hottest 
summers, the hard toils and sufferings of many a Mexican yoke of oxen, 
and, lastly, the greatest negligence of an agricultural people in relation 
to the improvements of breeds, one and all have failed ever to induce a 
sinzle case of lung plague. Delafond had his theories. We have an 
array of facts on our side as great and as incontrovertible as any ever 
before adduced in support of any medical or other question. 

But brevity is not always desirable when the object to be attained is 
the diffusion of an abundant and accurate knowledge, and interesting 
points may be beneficially discussed under the separate heads arranged 
by Delafond. 


SPECIAL CAUSES FAVORING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DISEASE IN 
MOUNTAINS. 


Delafond asserts that in Switzerland, Piedmont, the Juras, the Dau- 
phiné, the Vosges, and Pyrenees, pleuro-pneumonia has existed per- 
manently. He does not ascribe this to geological formation, but he 
believes firmly, with almost all the veterinarians in mountainous dis- 
tricts, that the disposition, topographic situation of mountains and val- 
leys, the cold temperature during six months of the year, hoar frost, 
heavy fogs, coldness and moisture of the nights and mornings on wood. 
land pastures, or near lakes and rivers, frequent atmospheric currents 
in spring and autumn, sudden changes from hot to cold, dry to wet, or 
vice versa, &e., &e., are the local determining causes which combine, 
with other causes that have yet to be noticed, in inducing the lung 
plague. Delafond’s words are that the causes enumerated concur “ @ 
donner naissance & la péripneumonie dans la haute et dans la basse mon- 
tagne.” 

Delafond erred. He had not read Haller; and had he visited any 
part where it was said the lung plague was a permanent infliction, he 
would have found, with Haller, that it was always arriving from some- 
where, but never originating spontaneously. If we examine the 
geographical distribution of the disease we shall find the mountains of 
northern Europe, of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, free from the dis- 
ease. And yet the special causes he refers to predominate there. No 
part of Europe has been more constantly devastated than Holland, 
noted for its submerged condition and the vast drainage works which 
render it inhabitable. In the British isles the hills have always been 
most free from pleuro-pneumonia. It has prevailed at all altitudes, but 
the Scottish and Irish mountains, distant from high roads and the busy 
traffic in cattle, have been the healthiest parts of our country. And in 
America, too, the disease has traveled from the east southward along 
the coast, attacking cities and farms most in communication with those 
cities. It has not penetrated to the fine dairy farms on the hills in 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 33 


New York State, and is not indigenous on the Alleghanies. It were a 
much easier task to trace the malady to fertile valleys, where cattle are 
often covered, as in Holland, to be protected from cold, and to towns 
where animals are always in stables, than to trace the spontaneous 
origin of the disease to the mountains of Central and Western Europe. 


FEEDING. 


There are many farmers, apt to reason on insufficient data, who notice 
coincidences between the development of the lung disease and great 
increase in some countries in the number of distilleries, the amount of 
grains and distillery waste fed to cattle. Others declare the disease 
commenced with the potato disease, and may be produced by feeding 
cattle on diseased potatoes. The introduction of turnip husbandry, 
which undoubtedly first made us acquainted with a form of red water 
in cows, and severe apoplectic affections in sheep, has also been regarded 
as the cause in Great Britain, of the lung disease in cattle. Delafond 
agrees that the foods named do not cause pleuro-pneumonia, and it would 
be easy to fill a large volume with facts in support of this assertion ; 
and yet he goes on to say that food that is too succulent, distributed in 
large quantity among cattle that are being stall fed, either for the 
butcher or for the production of milk, may induce (peut occasioner,) 
pleuro-pneumonia. 

We are not ignorant of the precise results which ensue when an 
excessive quantity, inordinate richness, or diseased condition of the 
alimentary matters named may operate in inducing ill effects. Diseased 
potatoes induce indigestion and colic. Turnips grown on ill-drained 
lands give rise to hematuria, the red water of cows after parturition. 
Distillery products occasion diuresis, disturbed digestion, and when 
still charged with alcoholic principles give rise to cerebral disturbance, 
apoplexy and death. These, and not pleuro-pneumonia, are known to us 
as capable of development from the abuse of otherwise useful articles 
of cattle feeding. ° 


STABLING—STALL FEEDING. 


2 


Many have been the high-colored descriptions of the wretched 
stables, sheds, or what the Scotch people term ‘“byres,” in which cattle 
are housed. It matters not that for generations cattle were similarly 
housed without suffering from pleuro-pneumonia. There are always 
those ready to skim the surface for reasons, and, after noticing the close- 
ness, filth, and torturing narrowness of cattle stalls, ascribe to that any 
and every plague infecting the cow shed. It is needless to walk the 
observer through the fetid holes in which cattle are kept for the supply 
of milk in Copenhagen, where pleuro-pneumonia has not been observed, 
nor to refer to the days when the London dairymen, richer in money 
and cows, kept the latter worse, bred from them regularly, and could 

3 


34 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


maintain country farms on which to graze them while calving. It stands 
to reason, according to some, that such conditions must induce pleuro- 
pneumonia. In America, sensation articles and skillful illustrations 
have not been wanting, and no one can hesitate in declaring that the 
cow sheds of Brooklyn and other cities are a disgrace to a civilized 
people. 

Huzard first described the cow houses of Paris as they were in 1793. 
It is needless to follow him through a long description of low sheds, in 
which a man could not stand erect, where cows were crippled into per- 
manent rest, with their horns overgrown and distorted for want of regular 
wear and tear, and in which fowls, pigs, and rabbits shared shelter and 
a pestilential atmosphere. Delafond has described the wretched stabling 
of hill farmers. How, then, can it be said that in these sheds, where the 
lung plague always prevails, the conditions do not exist for its sponta- 
neous origin? 

It cannot be disputed that there are conditions—as when an animal suf- 
fers from pleuro-pneumonia, and has but one lung to breathe with—under 
which a large volume of pure air may turn the scale from death to life. 
It is also undoubted that the concentration of the poison so freely given 
off in this contagious disease must materially favor its reproduction in 
the systems of susceptible animals. But no one who has witnessed the 
slow progress of the malady in town dairies, and the rapid destruction 
of herds in open fields, can for a moment believe in the usual aggrayva- 
tion of the malady by bad stabling. Where the malady has been induced 
among young stock by large dairymen so as to prevent after incon- 
veniences, when the animals are fit to breed and yield milk, it has been 
found that most survived when kept warm in close sheds. Recommenda- 
tions as to ventilating stables after disease had commenced, have at times 
resulted in amuch more rapid destruction of the cattle, and we are bound 
to admit that @ priori reasoning has often been at fault on this subject. 


ABUNDANT MILK SECRETION. 


The universal prevalence of the lung plague in town dairies, where 
cows are kept for an abundant production of milk, has led to the theory 
that the drain on the system thus kept up induces the pleuro-pneumonia. 
It is asserted, and there appears some ground for the belief, that the 
human female, as well as the female among lower animals, is more sus- 
ceptible than others to the influences of contagion, but so far no facts of 
importance have ever been published indicating that an abundant secre- 
tion of milk induces specific disease and malignant fevers. Delafond 
has referred to abundant production in dairies where pleuro-pneumonia 
was always troublesome, and expresses himself as follows: “I firmly 
believe that cows which calve every ten or eleven months, and which 
are constantly yielding an abundant milk secretion, whether by being 
fed abundantly on rich provender, or placing them in hot, damp stables, 
so as to check cutaneous and pulmonary secretion, soon have their chest 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 35 


enfeebled and are seized with pleuro-pneumonia; or, at all events, and 
that is incontestable, they become predisposed to the disease, which they 
easily get on being exposed to the breathing of a cold air, or to cold on the 
surface of the sin.” 

Here, again, it is not difficult to trace the real effects of an abundant 
milk secretion in stables that are close and ill-drained. Up to the time 
when the lung disease first appeared in London it was not uncommon 
for cows to be milked for several consecutive years. Large milkers were 
always kepton, and had acalf annually until too old or killed by disease. 
The disease that killed them was not pleuro-pneumonia, but tuberculosis. 
That malady, once so prevalent, is almost unknown now, inasmuch as 
the London cow feeders have ceased to breed from their cows, and the 
average duration of a cow’s lifetime in a London shed does not exceed 
six months. 


DRINKING COLD OR IMPURE WATER. 


It is hardly necessary to refer at length to this reputed cause of pleuro- 
pneumonia. Not only is there an absence of fact in support of the 
production of the malady by cold water in winter and stagnant in 
summer, but it is well known that the malady is usually most rife in 
many cities during the summer, when cattle are allowed, as in Washing- 
ton, to roam at pleasure during the day, coming in contact, and, there- 
fore, infecting each other, yet while the supply of water is good, and 
indeed unexceptionable. Wereit worth while [ could easily furnish many 
facts under this head indicating that there is no relation whatever 
between the condition and quantity of water cattle drink and the devel- 
opment of the lung disease. 


CHILLS—BREATHING A COLD AIR. 


East winds in Seotland were blamed by Professor Dick as the active 
agency inducing bovine pleuro-pneumonia. He overlooked the fact that 
the east winds prevailed before 1843, when the lung plague had not yet 
penetrated Scotland. I have seen on the coast of Fife a herd of cattle 
of all ages seized with bronchitis—a curable, benignant, and acute inflam- 
mation, presenting none of the characters of the lung plague; and there 
is no doubt that deficient shelter, intense cold, and rapid changes of the 
weather, may induce sporadic and non-contagious inflammations of the 
respiratory organs. But this is not pleuro-pneumonia. 

It is not at all uncommon in Great Britain, Holland, and elsewhere, 
for farmers to ascribe the disease to chills; and its prevalence among 
drift cattle has been referred to transportation for long distances in open 
railway cars, on steamboats, and exposure in markets. But who ever 
heard of western cattle being struck with the lung plague in passing 
from Illinois to New York? Spanish cattle, reared in a country free from 
pleuro-pneumonia, suffer all the hardships of rough weather at sea, but 


36 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


are landed invariably sound in their lungs in Liverpool or London. Dan- 
ish cattle cross the German Ocean and suffer much ill-treatment, but 
their dissection reveals at no time the lesions of the lung plague. 

Not so with Dutch or Irish cattle. They make a short sea voyage 
from an infected country and propagate pleuro-pneumonia wherever they 
come in contact with susceptible cattle. 

Innumerable observations undoubtedly show that the lung plague 
prevails as much, and often more, during hot weather than in the win- 
ter months; it spares many cold countries into which it has no opportu- 
nity of transportation, and visits the most genial climate whither sick 
cattle have been taken. Italy and Australia furnish as good fields for 
its development as the Swiss Alps, and the colder portions of the 
United States. 


OVERWORK. 


In France and Italy it has been asserted that keeping oxen long in 
the yoke, exhausting them, starving, and often drenching them with 
rain, induced the lung disease. I know not what diseases such prae- 
tices have not been said to cause. If we survey the countries where 
pleuro-pneumonia has been longest known, and where its ravages have 
been most intense, we shall find that, as a rule, it prevails among milk 
cattle that never work, steers that are grazed or stall-fed, and never 
broken to the plow or wagon, and herds of breeding stock, as in the . 
Australian runs, never accustomed to restraint or punishment. 


HEREDITARY PREDISPOSITION—CONGENITAL PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 


It is necessary to establish clearly the difference between hereditary 
taint and congenital disease. A malady is termed hereditary when it is 
transmitted from parent to offspring by virtue of a constitutional defect, 
deformity, or taint. It may, but usually does not, appear at birth. The 
best example is furnished by cancer, which occurs frequently in the 
human female, and recurs for generations. None of the specific or 
contagious fevers are hereditary, and although the question has been 
discussed in relation to pleuro-pneumonia, it can easily be settled. 
Delafond thought that the deterioration of breeds might favor its devel- 
opment. And why, then, has the disease not appeared in South America, 
while it has decimated the matchless herds of England and Aus- 
tralia? It may be accepted as a settled truth that the lung disease, like 
the rinderpest and foot and mouth disease, spreads without reference to 
any peculiar breed. Improved and unimproved breeds are alike sus- 
ceptible of the affection. 

Calves are, however, born at times of sick cows, and present unmis- 
takable signs of the lung plague. The first observation of this sort was 
made by Hilfelhelseim, in the Rhine provinces, who dissected the 
foetuses of cows that aborted under the disease. He found the lesions 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 37 


of pleuro-pneumonia in these animals. Delafond made similar observa- 
tions, but has created some confusion by including cases of tuberculosis 
with others of pleuro-pneumonia. In 1839, a cow that had gone six 
months in ealf was killed in Fribourg, Switzerland, while suffering from 
pleuro-pneumonia. The foetus presented signs of the malady. It is 
common for calyes to take the disease soon after birth, and I have 
shown in a government report that the contagious cattle diseases of 
Ireland, including pleuro-pneumonia, were mainly due to the active 
trade in sucking-calves between the large towns of England and 
Dublin’ 

It has been necessary frequently to refer to animals that are suscepti- 
ble and insuseceptible to attacks of pleuro-pneumonia. This has been 
ascribed by some to constitutional or inbred resistance or weakness. 
Tt is due to what pathologists term, for want of a better name or expla- 
nation, idiosynerasy. At times it appears that young animals resist 
the disease better than old ones; and Mr. Harvey, of Glasgow, found 
that by communicating the disease to yearlings and two-year-olds, he 
had fewer deaths than when he had it among his pregnant and milch 
cows. But, as Sauberg has observed, outbreaks occur in which the 
older animals seem to bear up better than the young ones, and it is 
difficult, on present data, to establish any rule on the point. 

It may be accepted as proved that all cattle, whatever their age, 
breed, sex, condition, &c., are susceptible to pleuro-pneumonia until 
they have been once seized, and then it is rare to witness a second 
attack. An insusceptible animal is, therefore, an animal that has once 
had the disease, either in a mild or latent, or severe and apparent, form, 

It is, however, certain that a degree of insusceptibility may be traced 
in animals that have never been affected, and we are quite at a loss to 
account for this. Similar observations are made in relation to all fevers 
affecting men and animals. A person has been known to nurse many 
during an outbreak of yellow fever, escape and live for a year, when 
the disease has reappeared, and the individual who has been proof 
against the malady one year has been among the first to die from it the 
next. 

Not a few cases have been recorded of rinderpest—and I have wit- 
nessed a remarkable one—of a cow standing for weeks by animals that 
died of the malady and which never showed signs of it. More strange than 
this are two observations, one in Lyons in 1853, and the other in Vienna 
in 1865, of dogs which could not be rendered rabid by the bites of, and 
inoculations from, undoubtedly rabid dogs. For the time, at all events, 
we must rest satisfied with the pathologist's explanation that these 
animals had a peculiar constitutional immunity or idiosynerasy. 


CONTAGION AND INFECTION. 


Not only have theories in relation to the cause or combinations of 
causes which may lead to the development of pleuro-pneumonia been 


38 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


unsatisfactory, but opportunities are constantly presenting themselves 
to test the fact that privations, overcrowding, impure food and water, 
&e., singly or combined, may kill, but never induce the disease which 
presents the characters of the one referred to in this report. 

The malady may be induced at will, by placing an animal suffering 
from it among healthy ones, and by direct inoculation. These are 
only methods by which it is propagated. 

Careful experiments have been instituted on this subject, and although 
it might be easy to refer to very numerous observations, it may suffice 
at present to quote from a French report, edited by Professor Bouley, 
and which was prepared by a committee of distinguished agricultur- 
ists, medical and veterinary professors, at. the request of the minister 
of agriculture. 


FIRST SERIES OF EXPERIMENTS. 


The first series of experiments was conducted at Pomerage, in the 
well-known and vast domain of Rambouillet. The whole is inclosed in 
walls, surrounded by woods, and perfectly isolated. A stable was sep- 
arated into two distinct compartments. In the first, designated A, with 
a southwest exposure, was a single door leading out on a sufficiently 
wide plot of ground, bounded by water where the cattle could be taken 
to drink. Every precaution was taken to prevent the cattle in A from 
coming within reach of those in a second stable, B. The latter was 
situated to the left of A, and completely separated by a solid wall. 

Pleuro-pneumonia had never existed in the commune of Rambouillet. 
Messrs. Renault, Delafond, and Jouet chose the cattle and subjected them 
to a close examination. .The herd consisted of three bulls and seventeen 
cows. These animals were distinguished by names and numbers, and 
distributed in the two stables in relation to age, breed, and sex, so as to 
secure an equable distribution. 

Three sick cows were sent to Rambouillet on the 14th of November, 
1851; one from the Département du Nord, the second from Mont Souris, 
and the third from Vaugirard. Three more sick cows were sent on the 
2d of December, 1851. Of these six sick animals, three died and three 
recovered. One lived three days in stable A, a second five days and a 
night in the same, and the third, in stable B, survived ten days and two 
nights. 

Of the three sick cows that recovered, one, admitted into stable A en 
the 10th of November, presented symptoms of the malady up to the 20th 
of December, viz: for thirty-four days. The second entered stable B on 
the 2d of December, and was sick for nineteen days. The third, also 
admitted in the same stable, continued ill for twenty-eight days. 

Stable A.—On the 21st of November, 1851, viz: only six days after 
the introduction into this stable of two sick cows, a peculiar cough was 
shown by two cows, (La Noire, No. 16, and Norma, No. 2.) Their lungs 
appeared sound, and they continued to eat and ruminate. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 39% 


The same symptom manifested itself successively, as follows: 

First, on Coquette. (No. 3,) on the 22d of November. 

Second, on Rosine, (No. 9,) on the 23d of November. 

Third, on Berthe, (No. 8,) on the 25th of November. 

Fourth, on Babet, (No. 7,) on the 3d of December. 

. Fifth, on Clara, (No. 1,) on the 5th of December. 

Sixth, on Olga, (No. 6,) on the 7th of December. 

Seventh, on Martin, (No. 15,) on the 10th of December. 

Thus, twenty-four days after the admission of two sick cows, and eight 
days after the introduction of a third sick animal, out of ten healthy ani- 
mals, nine presented the abnormal indication of a peculiar cough. Only, 
one cow (La Caille, No. 11) continued in perfect health. 

After this first sign of sickness, the characteristic symptoms of pleuro- 
pheumonia appeared in six cows, in the following order: 

First, Olga, (No. 6,) thirty-one days after first contact. 

Second, La Noire, (No. 16,) thirty-two days after first contact. 

Third, Clara, (No. 1,) thirty-five days after first contact. 

Fourth, Rosine, (No. 9,) thirty-five days after first contact. 

Fifth, Norma, (No. 2,) thirty-seven days after first contact. 

Sixth, Coquette, (No. 3,) fifty-seven days after first contact. 

Of these six animals one only died, viz: Olga, (No. 6,) and her carcass 
was removed to Alfort on the 6th of January, and there dissected by the 
members of the commission. ; 

Of the five other cows in this stable, the reporters say that symptoms 
of variable intensity and duration appeared, and they all recovered, with 
the exception of some lesions recognized some time after by dissection. 

Of the three animals (Berthe, No. 8, Babet, No. 7, and Martin, No. 15) 
which began to cough the first days after contact with the sick cows, 
the only symptom which lasted, and is said to have continued for several 
months, was the cough. 

Stable B—On the 25th of November, 1851, viz: nine days after the 
introduction in stable B of the two sick cows, (Nos. 23 and 24,) the healthy 
cows began to cough, in the following order: 

First, Suzon, (No. 13,) on the 26th of November. 

Second, La Garde, (No. 20,) on the 2d of December. 

Third, Marton, (No. 5,) on the 3d of December. 

Fourth, Kettley, (No. 17,) on the 7th of December. 

Fifth, Leduc, (No. 18,) on the 10th of December. 

Sixth, Nebula, (No. 4,) on the 18th of December. 

Seventh, Homard, (No. 14,) on the 28th of December. 

So that thirty-two days after the introduction of sick cows in stable B, 
out of ten healthy animals seven presented the peculiar abnormal sign 

\. of a peculiar cough. 

Three animals (Junon, No. 19, Bringé, No. 10, and Biche, No. 12) con- 

tinued in perfect health. 


40 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Well-marked symptoms of pleuro-pneumonia presented themselves on 
four cows, in the following order: 

First, La Garde, (No. 20,) sixteen days after first contact. 

Second, Ledue, (No. 18,) thirty days after first contact. 

Third, Marton, (No. 5,) thirty-five days after first contact. 

Fourth, Homard, (No. 14,) forty days after first contact. ; 

Two of these animals died after nine days’ illness. The other two 
were quite convalescent in twenty-eight and thirty-five days respectively. 
The three other animals continued to cough for some months without 
manifesting more serious symptoms. 
. The conclusions drawn by the French commissioners from the forego- 
ing experiments were as follows: 

The epizoétic pleuro-pneumonia of cattle is susceptible of transmission 
from sick to healthy animals by cohabitation. : 

Twenty per cent. of the animals manifest a resistance to the contagion. 

Highty per cent. manifest various effects of the contagious influence. 

Fifty per cent. are seized with decided symptoms of pleuro-pneumonia, 
and of these fifteen per cent. succumb, and thirty-five per cent. recover. 

Immediate contact is not necessary for the transmission of the disease, 
and the first affected were among the furthest removed from the sick. 

A better idea of the results of the very important experiments thus 
related may be formed by the subjoined tables, which show at a glance 
the conditions under which the disease was propagated. I have enlarged 
the French tables, and included all the data of importance. 


SECOND SERIES OF EXPERIMENTS. 


The second series of experiments was instituted with a view to learn 
whether the animals that had been once affected enjoyed an immunity 
against further attacks, and whether those that had resisted the disease 
were susceptible of subsequent infection. 

On the 5th of March, 1852, there were placed in a stable on the farm 
of Charentonneau— 

1st. Five cows from Pomerage, viz: Bringé, (No. 10,) from stable B, 
which had resisted the disease; Kettley, (No. 17,) ditto; Clara, (No. 1,) 
from stable A, which first showed signs of pleuro-pneumonia on the 21st 
of December, 1851; Norma; (No. 2,) from the same stable, affected the 
23d of December; La Coquette, ditto, date of attack 21st of January, 
1852. 

2d. With these five cows were placed two perfectly healthy animals, 
(Marion, No. 7, and Zula, No. 8.) 

3d. Lastly, six cows, (Rose de Mai, No. 1, Mille Fleurs, No. 4, Jacque- 
line, No. 3, Blanchette, No. 8, Rosette, No. 3, and Bucheronne, No. 5,) 
inoculated with blood, nasal discharge, and feecal fluids, were also sub- 
mitted to the influence of cohabitation. 

On the 2ist of January, 1852, two sick cows were placed in this stable. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. Al 


One of these cows was left eighteen days in the stable, and then killed 
to serve for the purpose of inoculation experiments. On the 27th of 
June another sick cow was placed in the same stable. 

The result was that the five animals from Pomerage resisted the dis- 
ease as well as one of the healthy ones. The second healthy cow was 
seized with the malady thirty-five days after cohabitation. 

In order to confirm the above results, the commissioners caused to be 
placed in stable A all that remained of the first herd. On the 6th of 
July, 1852, five cows were sent from Paris to Pomerage. _ Not one of the 
animals that had served in previous experiments contracted the disease. 

The history of pleuro-pneumonia, coupled with the observations made 
on the supposed casual agencies capable of inducing the disease, are 
almost sufficient to establish the purely contagious nature of the disease, 
but there are several important proofs that deserve mention. 

It is seen in all countries where the lung plague appears, that it 
spreads in proportion to the opportunities of contagion. It is worst in 
large cities, where cow feeders have to make frequent purchases. It is 
apt to diminish in severity, as per example, in the city of Washington, 
in Dublin, Ireland, and elsewhere, so long as the cows are confined to 
stables in the winter and different herds have no chance of approach. 
When spring and fine weather arrive, and the cows are turned out during 
part of the day, or altogether, on commons, parks, or pastures, the pres- 
ence of any infection results in the rapid dissemination of the disease. 
I had special occasion to study this among the cows turned out into the 
Phenix Park, Dublin, and on the commons near Neweastle, in England. 

In 1862 I chose a large estate in Perthshire, presenting the feature of 
being cut up in farms, on some of which cattle were wholly bred; 
whereas, on others, purchases had occasionally been made. The result 
was the demonstration of the fact that the disease appeared only where 
it was carried by diseased cattle. The estate was that of Lord Wil- 
loughby d’Eresby, comprising twenty-six farms, on eleven of which the 

‘disease was at different times imported; whereas on the fifteen other 
farms, interspersed between eleven, the only report to be obtained was, 
“Never had the disease. Breeds his own stock.” 

A similar inquiry relating to the parish of St. Martin, in Perthshire, 
showed that pleuro-pneumonia had appeared. there in 1845. Since then 
ten farms have been visited by the disease, and in every case the attack 
has been distinctly traced to contact with diseased cattle. Nineteen 
farms, on which eattle are bred and purchases rarely made, have enjoyed 
a perfect immunity 

The high-prized herds of England, which have been carefully isolated 
by their proprietors, have always remained free from the disease, and 
short-horn breeders have, in many instances, exercised the greatest care 
not to have any admixture with strange animals, which would certainly 
have destroyed their stock. 

It is needless entering at length into the subject of authorities on this 


42 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


point. The voice of the ablest and most careful observers, who have 
studied pleuro-pneumonia practically, is unanimous on the point; and 
although in every country the tendency has been at first to regard this 
insidious disease as originating from atmospheric agencies, when the 
facts have been probed by skillful men, the earlier opinions have been 
rejected. Gerlach, in 1835, Delafond, in 1844, and Sauberg, in 1846, 
published very abundant and conclusive testimony on this point. 


THE PATHOLOGY, OR NATURE OF THE LUNG PLAGUE. 


There is nothing more dangerous and better calculated to retard inquiry 
and truth than the common practice of speculating as to the nature of 
specific diseases in men and animals by the analogical method. Bovine 
pleuro-pneumonia has been widely supposed to be an inflammation of 
the lungs, governed by the same conditions that operate in relation to 
ordinary inflammations of the chest in the human family, and, indeed, 
in all mammalia. Thecharacteristic signs of small-pox depend on a cuta- 
neous inflammation, but have apperances different from the results of a 
seald. Itis as rational to define variola inflammation of the skin as it is to 
declare that the lung disease of cattle is an inflammation of the air passage 
and lungs. The local phenomena of the disease are associated with and 
characterized by inflammatory changes, but the cause in operation 
inducing all this is peculiar and specific. 

The lung plague is a malignant fever, never generated de novo, so far 
as reliable observation has yet reached, dependent on the introduction 
of a virus or contagion into the system of a healthy animal. This prin- 
ciple produces a local change if inserted into any part provided with a 
connective or fatty tissue, in which it most readily penetrates. The same 
local change is produced by its contact with the delicate mucous surface 
of the bronchial tubes. It adheres, spreads not unlike cancer, regard- 
less of the nature and importance of the structure it invades, and 
traverses the lymphatic vessels to form deposits in the neighboring 
lymphatic glands, but not generally throughout the lymphatic sys- 
tem. At first there is no great intensity of inflammation. Suppuration 
is only a later complication from the concomitant non-specific change in 
masses of areolar or connective tissue. Congestion and a serous 
infiltration rapidly surround the spot inoculated. Heat, redness, pain, 
and swelling manifest themselves, and the reproduction and extension 

of the tissue-destroying virus may be judged by the extent of swelling ; 

the amount of the yellow gelatinous serosity or exudation which fills the 
lung tissue, thickens white fibrous structures, blocks up the adipose 
tissue corpuscles out of which the fat is displaced, and is only limited 
in many cases by the amount of connective tissue it can invade, by gravi- 
tation or otherwise, and the endurance of the animal under a process so 
prostrating and depletive. 

That all this happens, we have tested by experiment. A susceptible 
animal is inoculated in the dewlap, and at the expiration of a week or 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 43 


nine days a swelling begins, infiltration extends beneath the chest and 
abdomen, involves both fore legs, is attended with great fever, prostra- 
tion, and death. In a second case, a drop of virus is inserted in the tip 
of the tail. It may produce a scarcely perceptible local change, when 
suddenly a swelling occurs at the root of the tail. The lymphatic 
glands there situated swell, the areolar tissue is distended with a deposit, 
such as ordinarily occurs in this disease in the thorax, and so widely 
does this invade the open tissues of the pelvis as to close the rectum, 
sometimes induce retention of urine, and, in the majority of instances, 
kill. 

As in the case of variolous inoculation, the effects often vary with the 
quantity of the virus introduced into a part. Many and deep pune- 
tures, especially in soft and vascular textures, will produce majignant 
variola in inoculating sheep. On the other hand, a single and superficial 
puncture results in a single pustule and imperceptible general symptoms. 
It is thus with the lung disease in cattle. 

The slight local change produced by a small quantity of virus, even 
though it has been impossible to note any systemic disturbance, stands 
for an attack of the disease, and the animal enjoys almost a perfect 
immunity from further attacks. 

Viewed in this light, we have to classify bovine pleuro-pneumonia 
with the contagious fevers, and we must recognize that it is peculiar and 
different from all other known diseases of man or animals. The ordinary 
phenomena of inflammations are but superadded conditions, and an 
animal may have the disease without indicating their presence. 


MEDICAL TREATMENT OF THE LUNG PLAGUE. 


A general and practical review of the means employed for the cure 
of the lung disease results in the conviction that, as a means to be relied 
on for the protection of the farmer’s stock and the herds of a country, 
they are worse than useless; and it is necessary to impress this lesson 
on the public mind, as there are always those who base their futile 
efforts in this respect on the declaration that all diseases are curable if 
we could only know the means to attack them, and the best antidotes. 
When science has sufficiently advanced, it is thought d'sease will lose 
all its power; and, in accordance with extravagant views in this diree- 
tion, men and animals ought to attain a state of immortality on earth. 

It is an undoubted fact that wherever rational preventive measures 
have been superseded by the efforts even of the most skilled veterinary 
practitioners, the mortality by the lung plague has always attained its 
highest point, and continued without intermission. It must be thus to 
the end of time. 

Nevertheless, circumstances arise when a certain relief may be afforded 
by remedial agents. A valuable animal or highly prized herd, so 
isolated from other stock as to prevent contagion, may be subjected to 


44 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


rational medical treatment. A survey of the means suggested in the 
past, of the principles which should guide us in the present state of 
knowledge, and of the details concerning my own practice, may, there- 
fore, be considered important in this place. 

Bourgelat, in 1769, recommended abundant blood-letting the first, see- 
ond, and third day, (when the blood fails to coagulate, it is a sign that 
this operation is useless,) emollient injections, bland or soothing bev- 
erages, (breuwvages adoucissants,) emollient masticatories, and emollient 
fumigations of the nose. When the disease is far advanced, blood- 
letting must be avoided, and reliance placed in cinchona bark and pur- 
gative injections. Bourgelat also prescribed small blood-lettings, low 
diet, emollient clysters, and fumigations of acetic acid in the stables. 

There is little interesting on this subject up to the date of Delafond’s 
work, 1844. He opens his chapter on the curative means of acute 
pleuro-pneumonia as follows: “Many persons and some veterinarians 
have sought in the arsenal of pharmacology the specific remedies for 
the cure of pleuro-pneumonia. I declare that for the cure of this disease 
there exists no specific, but rather rational curative means based on the 
nature, seat, and stage of the malady. The two great secrets, in my 
opinion, are, first, in recognizing pleuro-pneumonia at its commencement; 
and, second, in adopting the means that I have to deseribe.” 

T cannot, with fairness, make a very brief summary of Delafond’s 
recommendations, and, in the main, shall give a translation of them, 
When pleuro-pneumonia, he says, affects a herd of cattle, the first 
animal affected must be removed and placed in an isolated spot, to be 
carefully examined during the entire progress of the case. Frequent 
examinations must be made of each animal in the herd. All that show 
a short, quick breathing, numbering from twenty-five to thirty respira- 
tions per minute, and an accelerated pulse, beating from sixty to sixty- 
five times per minute, in which the chest is evidently flattened either on 
one side or the other, whose respiratory murmurs will be loud and 
associated with a friction sound, and which have their visible mucous 
membranes reddened, must be regarded as subjects which, notwith- 
standing that they continue to eat and drink, ruminate, and give milk 
as in health, will in three or four days cease to eat, ruminate, and give 
milk. They will moan and indicate all the signs of pleuro-pneumonia 
at a period when it is severe and often incurable. 

An animal chosen with care in the earliest stage, and isolated, must 
be placed on low diet, and only allowed a little green grass or hay. 
From six to eight pounds of blood must be drawn, and this repeated 
eight or ten hours later. As soon as the blood has ceased to flow, the 
body and limbs must be rubbed for half an hour with hay or straw 
wisps, and a good covering must be thrown over the body. Three hours 
after the first bleeding, and every two hours afterwards for sixteen hours, 
a draught must be given, consisting of one drachm of emetic tartar 
in a quart of river or spring water. For animals under two years of age 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 45 


the dose of the tartrate of antimony should be half a drachm, and for 
animals from three to eight years of age a drachm and a half each time. 

After the second bleeding the draughts are continued, and if, after 
twelve hours, the respirations have not been lowered, to twenty and 
three-and-twenty per minute, a third abstraction of the same quantity 
of blood must be practiced. If the pulse becomes strong and full, the 
breathing less frequent, the mucous membranes paler, and especially if 
the respiratory murmurs are less loud, it may be considered that the 
animal is saved, and that its convalescence will be short. 

Independently of the bleedings and the administration of emetic 
tartar, about fifteen liters of water, with three liters of barley, may be 
boiled, throwing off the first water and adding thirty liters more. Two 
pounds of sulphate of soda is added to this barley tea, and one liter of 
this mixture is given, alternatively with the emetic every three hours. 

Marshmallows, linseeds, or coarse bran, are to be made into a decoc- 
tion, and administered in the form of four injections daily. This same 
material may be used warm to steam the animal’s nostrils, by placing 
it in a stable-pail and covering the animal’s head and the pail with a 
large cloth. 

These measures, says Delafond, must be continued for three or four 
days—indeed, during the entire first period of the disease ; and it is rare 
that the respiratory movements do not return to their normal condition. 
If the patient purges, injections of bran decoction are recommended. 

Animals that indicate a yellow or paled and infiltrated aspect of the 
conjunctive must be bled to the extent of one liter or a liter and a half 
daily, as heavy blood-lettings are prejudicial in such cases. 

When pleuro-pneumonia begins by an inflammation of the pleura, the 
animal must be bled to the extent of two or four pounds two or three 
times daily. The emetic draughts are to be persevered in, the body well 
rubbed and clothed, and the sides of the chest must be rubbed with hot 
vinegar, or with a mixture of three ounces of ammonia to one ounce of 
vinegar. An infusion, in two liters of hot vinegar, of a pound of white or 
black hellebore, or of the large horse-radish sage may be found economical 
in some parts. If these cannot be had, a blistering tincture may be pre- 
pared, as follows: Powdered cantharides, two ounces ; powdered euphor- 
bium, one drachm; alcohol, one-half pound. The three substances 
must be left in a bottle for some days, and then filtered. 

If the symptoms subside, the animal is to be kept under shelter and 
on moderate diet. If, on the contrary, the pleurisy terminates in effu- 
sion, and the lung tissue is engorged and hepatized, no hopes can be 
entertained of the animal’s recovery. 

When the lung disease commences by an active inflammation of the 
bronchial tubes, the jugular vein must be freely opened and from six to 
ten pounds of blood abstracted; other emissions, from four to eight 
pounds each, must be repeated for two or three days each. If the 
inflammation continues and spreads to the lung tissue, the dry rubbing, 


46 ; DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


emollient fumigations, and injections of marshmallow or bran decoc- 
tions, containing three ounces of sulphate of soda, must be persisted in. 
This treatment must continue four or five days; but if the cough per- 
sists, a seton must be inserted in the dewlap, and the seton medicated 
with the vinegar infusion of the white or black hellebore. When the 
inflammation subsides, the sternutatory vinegar prescribed by Mathieu 
renders good service. It is compounded as follows: Alum, sulphate of 
zine, Spanish pepper, turpentine, one ounce each; camphor, two drachms; 
strong Burgundy vinegar, one pint. The solid substances are to be 
powdered and mixed with the vinegar and turpentine. They are to be 
macerated for eight hours, placed in a well-corked bottle, and well shaken 
before being given to the animal. Three times a day, and when the 
animal is fasting, a small teaspoonful of vinegar is poured into one or 
other of the nostrils. The animals that have once had this operation 
performed can with difficulty be induced to submit to it again. 
Immediately after the administration, big tears drop from the eyes, and 
violent sneezing tends to discharge mucosities and the false membranes 
which obstruct the bronchial tubes and nasal cavities. Should the 
bronchitis terminate in inflammation of the pulmonary tissue, and this 
pass rapidly into a state of hepatization, further measures must be 
resorted to. 

When pleuro-pneumonia is simple or complicated by pleurisy or bron- 
chitis, and terminates in gangrene, the case may be regarded as irreme- 
diable. The same is true if there is an abundant effusion in the pleura. 
The animal soon dies asphyxiated. 

The symptoms of a severe and desperate case are suspension of feed- 
ing and rumination, tympanitis, or distension of the paunch by gas im- 
mediately after feeding, pulse from sixty to seventy and small, tender- 
ness on pressure of the sides of the chest, absence of respiratory murmur 
and friction sound, short and moaning expiration, violent heart-beats, 
driveling at the mouth, and the obstinate maintenance of the standing 
posture. It is difficult, with such symptoms, for the animal to recover, 
but cases of slow restoration to health have occurred. 

At this stage the animal is to be bled only to the extent of two to 
four pounds for two or three days. The emetic drinks must not be given, 
but the sulphate of soda persevered with. The injections, fumigations, 
and dry rubbings must be followed up; a seton and one or two rowels on 
the sides of the chest are to be inserted. A little easily-digested food is 
to be given the animal, and about an ounce of salt daily. If the mucous 
membrane remains pale and the animal feeble, drinks containing vegeta- 
ble tonics, such as gentian, &c., must be used. Dieterichs vaunts tar- 
water, to which two drachms of essence of turpentine is added, and 
which is used for fifteen or twenty days. When an animal is convales- 
cent it may be turned out for au hour or two during fine weather. A 
relapse is to be treated by a slight bleeding, low diet, frictions, and sul- 
phate of soda. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE, AT 


Such are the long and precise recommendations which Delafond gave, 
and which may be viewed, in the main, as measures from first to last to 
be scrupulously avoided. Delafond’s belief in the treatment he recom- 
mends as benefiting sick animals, is but one of innumerable instances of 
men being misled by nature’s own recuperative powers. 

Sauberg, in his prize essay published in 1846, devoted a chapter to 
the therapeutics of pleuro-pneumonia, but he is not sparing in words of 
caution, and in impressing on the minds of agriculturists that there is no 
specific against the disease.* He indorses Delafond’s practice of blood- 
letting, and says that if this is resorted to at the right time the animal 
improves at once. - If the patient is young, robust, in good condition ; if 
the mucous membranes are red, the pulse small, hard, and frequent, 
breathing short and quick, heart-beats scarcely to be felt, then from ten 
to fifteen or twenty pounds of blood must be abstracted. It is only by 
this means, says Sauberg, that the abundant exudation of plastic lymph 
in the lungs, as well as other evil results can be averted. If no improve- 
ment is observed within eighteen or twenty-four hours, a second and even 
larger blood-letting must be performed. After the fifth day of an attack 
of pleuro-pneumonia Sauberg never bled, and whenever he did so, he ob- 
served great prostration and even death. It is evident, he says, that 
whereas an early bleeding may prevent the exudation, should this have 
taken place, the loss of blood may undermine the vital powers so as to 
prevent the possibility of recovery. 

- Sauberg is one of the strongest advocates of derivatives. He recom- 
mends a seton on the’ dewlap, or one on either side of the chest. He 
also advises a blister spread over a surface deprived of hair to the extent 
of a man’s hand, behind each shoulder blade. The vesicant he uses is a 
compound of potassio tartrate of antimony, powdered cantharides, and 
euphorbium, of each three quentchen, lard four loth, and one loth of oil 
of turpentine. He also suggests the application of the red-hot iron to 
the sides of the chest. In slight cases rowels dressed with black helle- 
bore suffice. The quicker and more active the results of these applica- 
tions, the more favorable is their operation. 

The internal remedies recommended by Sauberg, consist mainly in 
tartar emetic, which, he says, is attended with the best results. He 
givesitin the morning in one or two drachm doses, with two or three ounces 
of sulphate of soda, an ounce of nitrate of potash, anda half an ounce 


*At page 131 of Sauberg’s work, already quoted, the author says: “ Wir haben kein 
Arcanum gegen die Lungenseuche des Rindyiehes und werden auch keins finden; 
wenn man nur beriicksichtigt wie die Krankheit bei den einzelnen Thieren so verschie- 
den ist, und die Mittel, die bei einem Kranken mit Nutzen angewandt wurden, bei dem 
anderen, wenn nicht Nachtheile, doch nicht gleich giinstige Erfolee zu Wege brachten, 
-so wird man sich wohl bescheiden. Wo der Landmann die Behandlung der Kranken 

nicht einem Thierarzt anvertranen kann oder will, sollte er nur nach allgemeinen Grund- 
siitzen verfahren, eine zweckmiissige Diiit anordnen, und nicht sein Heil in kostbaren 
Mitteln suchen, der Verbreitung der Seuche méglichst vorbauen, und wo Heilung der 
Erkrankten nicht méglich ist, das Schlachten vorziehen.” 


48 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


of powdered juniper berries. This has an effect on the animal’s bowels. 
In gastric or bilious complications he gives the emetic tartar m two or 
four ounces of white soap. 

When the fever is slight, the cough strong, and appetite good, Sau- 
berg advises not to bleed, aia the same applies to old and weak animals, 
especially cows liable to abort, &c. He still persists in the tartarized 
antimony, and gives it with from ten to sixty grainsof assafcetida, and an 
ounce of powdered juniper berries, twice daily in water. Bitter herbs, 
oil of turpentine, camphor, tar water, arnica, fennel, &c., are remedies 
suggested. 

A wise precaution is insisted on by Sauberg, and that i is to avoid a 
profuse and debilitating purgation. 

The practice recommended by Delafond and Sauberg has very largely 
been carried out and recommended by other authors, such as Kreutzer, 
Roll, &e., even of late. R6ll adds to the treatment by bleeding, tartar 
emetic, &e., the administration, in cachectic and feeble animals, of sul- 
phate of iron with tar water, or of alum, tannin, mineral acids, and 
other tonics. 

In England many practitioners have resorted to various methods of 
treatment. It is long since the practice of blood-letting has been done 
away with, but the advocates of setons, and more particularly of active 
blisters, such as croton oil, cantharides, tartar emetic ointment, still 
exist. Small doses of calomel and tartar emetic, stimulating draughts 
containing creosote, turpentine, sulphuric ether, carbonate of ammonia, 
and alcohol, have been more generally employed. Mineral acids, the 
administration daily of dilute sulphuric acid especially, and an early 
resort to mineral and vegetable tonics, have found their advocates. Of 
late years the tincture of aconite has been vaunted as a febrifuge, and 
largely used, and some have tried Indian hemp and other narcoties. 
Anything and everything has been tried, and without much reasoning 
or careful record of results. The important feature salient in the his- 
tory of pleuro-pneumonia in England, is that all the therapeutic skill of 
the veterinarian has not prevented greater and more general losses, 
than have ever been witnessed in other countries, if we may except 
Holland. 

For some years I have noticed that the earlier lesions of the lung dis- 
ease partake, in their character and results, more of the features of hem- 
orrhage—a prostrating discharge from the blood vessels of a. sero-albumi- 
nous product—than of inflammation. The congestion and inflammation are 
truly secondary, and once developedit is apparently impossible to control 
them, though their extent varies greatly. In some animals but a portion of 
one lung is involved, in others, one entire organ is affected, and in others, 
which cases are almost without exception fatal, both lungs become hepa- 
tized, and the animal dies sooner or later of apnoea or suffocation. 

Notwithstanding the well-founded objection of some distinguished 
veterinarians to the practice of administering mineral astringents as 


i  _ 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 49 


preservatives—an objection to which Professor Nicklas gave utterance 
at the first international veterinary congress held in Hamburg in 1863— 
it is certain that they far surpass all other means in the treatment of the 
early stages of the lung plague. Professor Nicklas said with much truth 
that where pleuro-pneumonia appeared there were often persons who pre- 
scribed sulphate of iron to check the progress of the disease; the isola- 
tion of such cattle was not attended to, and the malady continued. 
Whereas if the sick were isolated, or slaughtered, and the remaining 
animals of a herd inoculated, there would be an end to the outbreak. 

But, on the other hand, if attention be paid to the segregation of the 
sick, and those indubitably free from the disease were inoculated, there _ 
is still a number, and often not a small one, sure to die within a month 
or six weeks, simply because inoculated too late. These animals, if 
of great value, and proper facilities are afforded for treatment without 
incurring the risk of extensions of the malady, may often be treated 
with success. 

Thermometer in hand, a good observer and auscultator can detect, 
some days—and even as long as ten days or a fortnight—before marked 
symptoms appear, the invasion of this disease. At that stage the 
peculiar yellow deposit which first slowly invades the interlobular tissue 
of the lungs is penetrating into the organ, and its extension may, as I 
have noticed frequently, be checked by active internal astringents. The 
best of these are the sesquichloride and the sulphate of iron. But our 
choice extends further, since vegetable infusions or decoctions contain- 
ing tannin, besides the astringent preparations of lead, may likewise 
retard and arrest the exudation. 

I have on several occasions been called to prescribe for herds in which 
I have readily traced cases of pleuro-pneumonia in advanced stages of 
the disease. I have removed the marked symptoms, and still a large 
proportion of the animals had the peculiar cough so well noticed by the 
French commission, yet to have neglected means to arrest the disease 
would have resulted in many deaths. Before I was led to approve, as I 
do strongly, of the practice of inoculation, and since when there have 
been insuperable obstacles to its adoption, I have placed all the herd, 
sometimes in the stable and at other times in the open field, on regular 
daily doses of sulphate of iron, allowing about half a drachm or a 
drachm to a bullock, mixed with a similar amount of bruised coriander 
seeds, and perhaps some bran, the better to disguise the iron. Thus 
mixed with fresh coriander seeds, cattle will leave grass to eat the 
medicine, and I have uniformly found a mitigation of the cough, a dis- 
appearance of the malady, and the herds have preserved an admirable 
condition. 

I can confirm Sauberg’s statement that it is dangerous to resort to 
active purgatives, and the common symptom, even in the earlier stages 
of pleuro-pneumonia, of constipation, can be better corrected by diet and 
the administration of a stimulant, such as carbonate of ammonia, com- 

4 


50 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


bined with warm water injections, than by any other plan. When the 
exudation in the lung tissue is not checked, and in all cases where it has 
advanced too far to admit of being checked by capillary astringents, it 
is, as a rule, desirable to leave animals entirely to nature. 

The observation of many hundred cases for the past fifteen years has 
convinced me that, left entirely to themselves, when the malady has 
fairly developed, a considerable proportion of the cattle affected in one 
lung recover, whereas nearly all those affected on both sides die. The 
many methods of treatment recommended have not seemed to increase 
the usual average number of cases of one-sided pluero-pneumonia which 
generally recover. 

It is extremely difficult to ascertain the conditions under which a 
small or a great mortality may be anticipated. This may be gleaned 
from the observations of the French commission. They found some 
animals which apparently resisted the disease. - These were doubtless 
latent cases, as they afterwards resisted contagion. If this be admitted, 
the mortality amounted to thirty per cent. of the animals affected, and 
this mortality is infinitely less than that observed frequently under cir- 
cumstances which would appear most favorable to the health of cattle 
and their resistance to disease. 

It has been seen that as far back as 1769 fumigations were recom- 
mended for the treatment of pleuro-pneumonia. Of late years carbolic 
acid has been strongly recommended for this purpose, and may prove 
beneficial. Its internal administration failed many years ago, when, under 
the name of ereosote—for much of our foreign creosote is carbolic acid—it 
was used especially by a distinguished English veterinarian, Mr. Charles 
Hunting, of Feme Houses, near Durham. The employment of anti- 
septics comes properly under the head of preventive measures, which 
are considered in a subsequent section of this report. 

Notwithstanding the many authorities in favor of blisters, setons, 
rowels, and even the hot iron, I must assert, from careful observation, 
that in the acute stages of the disease they invariably aggravate the 
malady and sometimes kill. There are instances which indicate the 
contrary, for when examining cases in Pennsylvania I was told by a 
farmer that his cattle were dying, and he called in a professional man 
who blistered severely and eured several. They would probably have 
recovered if left to nature, though it is possible that in some cases 
counter-iritants may be useful. The difficulty is to choose those cases ; 
and, as a rule, I am satisfied that any but the mildest stimulants applied 
to the skin irritate and do harm. 

It is highly important that any medicines given to cattle with this 
disease should be given carefully, to avoid choking. Farmers are often 
very rough in giving drenches to cattle. They should go up to the off 
shoulder of the animal, pass the left hand in the angle of the mouth 
on the left side, draw the head around gently, without unduly elevating 
it, and pour the draught out of a small horn in moderate quantities, 


ms 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. : 51 


giving the animal time to swallow. I remember, as far back as 1851, 
being asked by a Yorkshire veterinarian to prepare a number of 
draughts, the active agent of which was carbonate of ammonia, for a 
herd of cows affected with the lung disease. The draughts were sup- 
plied to the farmer, and the very first day they were being administered 
by himself and servants, according to order, in gruel, a messenger sum- 
moned me to attend an animal which had been killed by the medicine. 
On arriving at the farmer’s, I perceived from the animal’s breathing, 
tremors, difficulty in standing, anxious expression of countenance, pro- 
truding and biood-shot eye-balls, that it was choking. I informed the 
farmer of the fact that the drench had been poured the wrong way, and 
since he was indignant at the declaration, I opened the trachea with my 
penknife, and in a fit of coughing a quantity of gruel, smelling strongly 
of ammonia, was forcibly ejected. This alone saved the reputation of the 
medicine and its compounder. 


INOCULATION OF THE LUNG PLAGUE. 


Tn 1836 pleuro-pneumonia was imported from Flanders among cattle 
fed at the distillery of Messrs. Willems & Platel, at Hasselt, in Bel- 
gium. The town was rich in horned stock, and the malady formed one 
of its fixed stations, and continued uninterrnptedly from 1836 to 1852. 
Dr. Didot* ascertained beyond a doubt, by personal inquiries among the 
Hasselt distillers, that this was a fact, and that the disease had never 
been absent from their stables during these sixteen years. The Belgian 
government had adopted a partial system of slaughter to stamp out the 
disease; but the indemnity was small, and the distillers found it more 
profitable to sell their cattle to butchers; and the inhabitants of Hasselt, 
Liége, Louvain, Terlemont, Brussels, and Antwerp, were supplied with 
a large amount of diseased meat. Dr. Didot learned that whereas goy- 
ernment officials slaughtered one or two per cent. of the infected ani- 
mals, the butchers purchased and disposed of fifteen, twenty, or twenty- 
five animals per week, according to the extent of the outbreaks. In the 
town of Hasselt alone it is computed by the same authority that 16,540 
head of sick cattle were consumed during the above period. The gov- 
ernment paid one-third of the value of 845 head of cattle during the same 
period. So late as 1851 M. Maris, one of the government veterinary 
surgeons at Hasselt, saw 1,300 cases of lung disease in that city alone. 

From 1840 to 1850+ the value of the horned stock lost by pleuro-pneu- 
monia in Belgium amounted to 2,531,409 franes and 30 cents. The sum 
paid by the government in indemnities amounted to 1,751,777 franes and 
40 cents. The disease continued unabated in 1851 and 1852. Every 
effort had been made by the: distillers to arrest the disorder—ventila- 


* Deux Jours 4 Hasselt. Essai sur L’Inoculation de la Pleuro-pneumonie Exsudative 
des Bétes Boyines. Bruxelles, 1853. 


t Rapport décennal de 1840 4 1850. Résumé statistique. Page 10. 


52 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


tion, fumigation, whitewashing, turning the cattle out for a period, the 
placing pigs in the stables, under the impression that they might destroy 
the putrid materials supposed to engender the disease, and so on. 

It so happened that the son of the senior member of the first firm of 
distillers whose cattle had been affected in 1836 had devoted himself to 
medicine. Dr. Willems studied the lung disease with discrimination, 
but even so late as 1850 he had not fully made up his mind as to the 
essentially contagious character of pleuro-pneumonia. Dieterichs had 
attempted the inoculation of the disease in order to prove its contagious 
character, and had failed. Vix repeated the experiments, and obtained 
results in the form of pneumonia, a pneumonia, says Dr. Willems,* due 
in all probability to purulent infection. The French commission inocu- 
lated cows with the blood, nasal discharge, and excrementitial fluids, in 
order to test the contagious properties of pleuro-pneumonia. Dr. Wil- 
lems had, moreover, observed that in his father’s stables there had been 
since 1836 over 500 animals that had suffered from pleuro-pneumonia, a 
considerable number of which had recovered, and remained ever after 
free from the disease. Yvart, Lafosse, Verheyen, and Pétry had made 
similar observations. These facts led Dr. Willems to institute a series 
of experiments as to the possibility of communicating the disease by 
inoculation, and the extent, if any, of the immunity thus secured to cat- 
tle. 

Dr. Willems adopted the rational plan of performing experiments on 
animals of different species. His first was as follows: 


Date. Material inoculated. Animal inoculated. Seat of inoculation. | Result. 

4 ((thigheesee eee None. 

Dec. 23, 1850.) Pulmonary exudation.........- Three rabbits. -...--......- J ING Sec oboos er aace None. 
AUN GoesbS Sao" None. 

Feb. 10, 1851.) Nasal discharges. ...........--- Tyo TaD Pits msteya'e = iaalaeleiale WEG saG gopeo asco None. 
| Intestinal tubercle squeezed in | One rabbit...-... .--.---.-. BUNS See Bh. aoc None. 

, sirup. 

June 19, 1851-| Pulmonary exudation.....-.--- Twelve pea fowls....--..-- Dhieh ss sss0 eee None. 
DO ssacinccwetece sioeelcs hlemene Several chickens.-.-...-.--. Ui alleen sae Gems None. 

1D Som anopseiae AooHor:abomcc One dogy-se- se a aas seine ores AUT Sep ear oeecor None. 

Docies S.-i ee ee TWO Ontss sce eeeieceememee Jie Gasqonaonsecec None. 

ID) Sones enade dose sesbec WOneysheepee ance ceeeerieamt SUE eSggoseeenecs None. 

ID Bosasacasssian sone eee see One English pig.--..--.--. Wal =) in. 2-2 None. 

MOet ect ete o eee Bs55ce Three Belgian pigs..-.-..-.. Rat eos sales 32 eee None. 

July 16, 1851.) Pulmonary exudation.........-. @uetsheepaene eee eerie 4 BRR ECS Ho aor None. 
IW O)sgonue Geese coe cosocoopar One ams. pees seein Thal) oe 22 = nice Ree None. 

IDG odscodloedannsede anonede QneKdoR eee senaeee eee alles sacha None. 

LDQ 5554S aed Ba mesopeeesopeaS Eight pea fowls..........-.. Tail: 5 2c Serene None. 

| A WONG G Ps: bpaion oo5d0Eeq5eE Tail. aeeeeeeeee None. 

eb. 26, 1852.| Liquid from the lungs used to { y : ; 

aa « Three Belgian pigs..-.--- Dail: ) Jee eee None. 

pease Se SSRI | Three pea fowls.....----- Thigh ease dens None. 

NOUN INOM saa sodssessoseoe MUA ssssd5 oboose None. 


* Mémoire sur la Péripneumonie Epizodtique du Gros Bétail, par L, Willems, Docteur 
en Médicine & Hasselt, 19. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 53 


Dr. Willems observed that inoculations which were usually accidental 
in man were unattended by ill effects. 

A second series of experiments was performed on cattle. The first 
group of these was as follows: 


Date. Material inoculated. Animal inoculated. | Seat of inoculation. Result. 
Feb. 10, 1851.) Blood from sick bullock. .--. A small bullock....} Root of tail........ Slight inflammation. 
Mucous from mouth of sick | A bullock ....-..-. Kootot tail: Joe <~ Slight inflammation. 
bullock. 
Intestinal tubercle broken | A bullock .....---.- Root of tail........ Slight inflammation. 
up in sugar and water 
Pulmonary liquid......--.. J js a Sanscoe Root of tail.....-.. Slight inflammation. 


The second group of observations is indicated below: 


Date. Material inoculated. Animal inoculated. | Seat of inoculation. 


| 


Root of tail. 


With two punctures on the nose. 


March 5, 1851-| Pulmonary exudation ........--. Two lean bullocks --.. 
Pulmonary exudation.....--..--. Five lean bullocks -...- 


Fifteen days after the inoculation small tumors were observed at the 
root of the tail, so as to cause this organ to be slightly raised. In one 
the tumor speedily disappeared; in the other the swelling enlarged, 
became very hard, attained the size of ahen’s egg, was situated between 
the anus and the root of the tail, and yielded gradually, without suppu- 
rating, to scarifications and a saline purgative. 

Of the five other bullocks four showed no signs; the fifth, three weeks 
after the inoculation, manifested a swelling of the head on the operated 
side. Two incisions were made, emollients applied, and a purgative 
administered. Low diet was also prescribed. _Onthe 20th of April the 
whole side of the head was swollenand almost of scirrhous hardness. 
Two deep incisions were made without finding pus. In the nose, at the 
point where the inoculation was performed, was a wound of unhealthy 
aspect from which a sanious pus was discharged. The ox grew lean. On 
the 17th of May a little pus flowed from the two incisions made on the 
20th of April; afterwards much pus flowed from these incisions, as well 
as shreds of areolar tissue and portions of dead skin. The tumor was 
subsiding. On the 22d of May a fluctuating tumor appeared below the 
jaws, from which much indolent-looking pus escaped. From that moment 
the ox began to thrive, notwithstanding that the suppurations continued 
till the 5th of June. By the 10th of June recovery was complete. Dr, 
Willems despaired for several days of this animal’s return to health, and 
he resolved not to inoculate again in the same region. 


THIRD GROUP OF OBSERVATIONS. 


On the 10th of May Dr. Willems inoculated nine Dutch bullocks and 
two lean Belgian cows. He made two punctures in the tail of each and 


54 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


used blood expressed from the muscles and liquid squeezed out of the 
lung of a cow suffering under the third stage of pleuro-pneumonia. 

Several bullocks showed the effects of inoculation by the 19th of May ; 
two more severely than the rest. On the 21st of May there was a decided 
swelling of the tail in six bullocks and one cow. Incisions were made to 
relieve the parts, emollients applied, and purgatives administered. 

On the 26th of May seven out of the nine bullocks and one cow pre- 
sented considerable tumefaction at the root of the tail; incisions and 
emollients were resorted to. On the 31st of May the swelling of the 
parts inoculated disappeared, and the animals regained their appetite and 
vivacity. : 

Two of the nine bullocks by this time suffered much; the root of the 
tail, the tissues around the anus, and the nates, were consolidated and 
enlarged by a deposit. In spite of all efforts, the free excision of the ma- 
terial so as to produce an artificial anus, the obstacle to defecation was so 
great, the straining so violent and constant, and the vital powers sunk so 
low, that on the 8th of June they died. Dr. Willems observed that in 
incising these tumors the animals suffered no pain. 

On the 9th of June these animals were dissected. One presented a 
general health of the internal organs. The lesions were localized in the 
anal region. The muscles and other tissues around were of a pale red 
color, interspersed by degenerated tissue. There wasnosuppuration. The 
anus and its surroundings for at least twelve inches in diameter appeared 
gangrenous. The lungs were of dark color, slightly congested, and pre- 
senting but the slightest trace of marbled hepatization. The gall blad- 
der was found full of black dense bile. There was slight serous effusion 
in the peritoneum, and the mucous lining of the intestines presented red 
or brown punctiform discolorations and some patches of red injection. 

In the second bullock the lesions were more extensive. The mortifi- 
cation of tissues extended up the rectum a distance of six inches. The 
peritoneum was inflamed, in some parts adherent by its opposing sur- 
faces, and a reddish serosity was effused in its cavity. The liver was 
softened, degenerated, of a light yellowish color. The mucous membrane 
of the tongue and windpipe was of adark brown color. The lungs were 
black, flaccid, and in the pleural sacs was a citrine-colored serous 
exudation. In the general disorganization of the organs of this animal 
the most interesting feature was a number of cysts, with delicate walls, 
distended by a dried homogeneous material similar to that inclosed in 
the intestinal tubercles of animals that die of pleuro-pneumonia. Some 
of these little saccules were in the folds of the peritoneum, but the major- 
ity, at least sixty, were in the thorax and on the internal surface of the 
ribs. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 55 


FOURTH GROUP OF OBSERVATIONS. 


Alarmed by the foregoing results, Dr. Willems determined on attempt- 
ing inoculation at the tip of the tail, as follows: 


Date. Material used. Animals inoculated. Beer eect 
June 19, 1851.| Pulmonary exudation from an animal in the | Five lean Belgian bullocks...) Tip of tail. 
first stage of disease. | 
Pulmonary exudation from an animal in the | One Dutch bullock........... | Tip of tail. 
first stage of disease. 
Pulmonary exudation from an animal in the | One calf two months old...... | Tip of tail. 
. first stage of disease. he 
Pulmonary exudation from an animal in the | One ealf three months old....| Tip of tail. 
first stage of disease. 


On the 30th of June a slight swelling was observed in the parts inocu- 
lated, with the exception of one bullock and two calves. The symptoms 
of inflammation advanced, and on the 22d of July the tip of the tail of 
four bullocks was completely gangrenous and detached. From that 
moment the animals improved. 


FIFTH GROUP OF OBSERVATIONS. 


: | ; : Seat of inocu- 
Date. Material used. Animals inoculated. lati Result. 
ation. 


June 26, 1851.| Pulmonary exudation | Twelve indigenous bul-| Tip of tail-..| Slight swelling on the 26th 
y 


from animal in first | locks. of July, and speedy re- 
stage of disease. covery. 
Pulmonary exudation | Two heifers -......---. | Tip of tail. 


from animal in first 


stage of disease. 


SIXTH GROUP OF OBSERVATIONS. 


Date. Material used. Animals inoculated. Seat of inoculation. 
July 16, 1851.) Pulmonary liquid........-....... Twelve lean bullocks............ Tip of tail. 
Wor as ccese cece cicse = eeeciee Onetherfer saesnmes easter Tip of tail. 
ID Wo Secu puopoceDoosceAaasoaus OnesDutehibulles. see sas eee Tip of tail. 
1D sGacossashdacens onaccee Avealf four days old: -- 25 ------ Tip of tail. 


On the 24th of July four showed swelling of the tail; on the 29th all 
had the enlargement, and on the 10th of August Dr. Willems ampu- 
tated the tail-tips of four. 


56 


DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


SEVENTH GROUP OF OBSERVATIONS. 


Date. Material used. 


Animals inoculated. | Seat of inoculation. 


Aug. 18, 1851.| Pulmonary liquid from a buliock 
in third stage of disease. 

Pulmonary liquid from a bullock 
in third stage of disease. 

Pulmonary liquid from a bullock 
in third stage of disease. 


Pulmonary liquid from a bullock 


Seven lean two-year old bullocks. Tip of tail. 
| 


One Dutch milch cow.......----- | Tip of tail. 


Fourteen lean bullocks, from three | Tip of tail. 
to four years old. | 


One Belgian milch cow ..----.--- | Tip of tail. 


in third stage of disease. | 


On the 9th of September the Dutch cow and two bullocks presented 
the first symptoms, and all the rest showed signs on the 14th, and after- 
wards recovered. 


EIGHTH GROUP OF OBSERVATIONS. 


Date. Material used. Animals inoculated. Seat of inoculation. 


Noy. 16, 1851.| Pulmonary exudation from a bul- | Four small indigenous cows .-..--.- Tip of tail. 
lock in the first stage, and kept 
ten days to note if it lost its 


properties. 


Ten days after the inoculation the first symptoms of specific inflam- 
mation appeared, and all recovered. 


NINTH GROUP OF OBSERVATIONS. 


Date. Material used. Animals inoculated. Seat of inoculation. 


Jan. 19, 1852.| Pulmonary exudation from cow | Five Belgian bullocks.-.--...-.-. Tip of tail. 
in third stage of the disease. 
One Dutch bullock......--.------ Tip of tail. 


On the 2d of February the greater part of these animals showed 
signs of the inoculation, and afterwards recovered. 

One animal on the 3d of February had a swelling in the upper part of 
the right hind limb. The tumor increased and the animal suffered in- 
tensely. Incisions, emollients and purgatives were resorted to as usual. 
By the 8th of February the swelling had invaded nearly the whole of the 
right hip, pushed the tail to the left, and the anus was partly occluded 
so as to cause difficulty in defecation. The animal died on the 10th. 
Post-mortem appearances indicated little else beyond the thickening of 
the skin and subcutaneous tissues of the right hip. There was some 
discoloration of the intestines, flaccid appearance of muscles, and dark 
color of lungs, but no specific appearances in internal organs. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 57 


TENTH GROUP OF OBSERVATIONS. 


Date. Material inoculated. Animals inoculated, Seat of inoculation 


Jan. 30, 1852.) Pulmonary exudation in first stage | Four old lean but strong Dutch | Tip of tail. 
of disease. bullocks. 


Two presented swelling on the 12th of February, and recovered; the 
others showed no signs. 


ELEVENTH GROUP OF OBSERVATIONS. 


Date. Material inoculated. Animals inoculated. Seat of inoculation. 


Feb. 26, 1852 | Pulmonary exudation from bul- | Six lean Dutch bullocks.....-...- Tip of tail. 
lock in first stage. 
Pulmonary exudation from bul- | Six fine Belgian steers -...-....-. Tip of tail. 
lock in first stage. 
Pulmonary exudation from bul- | One Dutch heifer ......-..-.----- Tip of tail. 
lock in first stage. 
Pulmonary exudation from bul- | One indigenous cow. 
lock in first stage. 


From the 13th to the 20th of March the effects of the inoculations were 
developed. Only one animal of the first group lost a little of its tail. 

Dr. Willems proceeded further. On the 19th of June, 1851, he inoc- 
ulated several cattle with the liquid expressed from healthy lungs with- 
out producing any effect. He then inoculated a bullock that had pre- 2 
viously had the disease, and witnessed no results except a little enlarge- 
ment at the seat of the puncture in one case. On the 28th of August, 
1851, he reinoculated a bullock that had been operated on six or seven 
months previously and had lost his tail; and did the same with two small 
COWS. 

On the 19th of January, 1852, he reinoculated three large bullocks, 
and on the 26th of February three other bullocks, the whole of which 
had been successfully operated on before. 

Fifty cattle that had not been inoculated were mixed in a stable with 
those referred to, and with the following result: 

In the month of May, 1851, three bullocks sickened; on the 22d of 
June a fourth case; on the 26th a fifth; on the 26th of July a seventh; 
and at different dates up to the 10th of March, 1852, seventeen of the 
new inoculated animals had suffered, and were sold for slaughter, whereas 
the other thirty-three doubtless had a latent form of the malady. 

The conclusions drawn by Dr. Willems were as follows: 

1. Pleuro-pneumonia is not contagious by inoculation of the blood or 
other matters taken from diseased animals and placed upon healthy 
ones. 


58 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


2. By the method that I employed, one hundred and eight beasts 
were preserved from pleuro-pneumonia, while of fifty beasts placed in 
the same stables and not inoculated, seventeen became diseased, and 
the disease is now banished from these stables, which had never been 
free from it since 1836. 

3. The inoculation of the disease itself, performed.in the manner that 
I have described, whether it may have occasioned apparent morbid 
manifestations or not, was the measure that preserved the animals from 
pleuro-pneumonia. 

4. The blood and the serous and frothy liquid squeezed from the lungs 
of a diseased animal in the first stage of pleuro-pneumonia is the most 
suitable matter for inoculation. 

5. The inoculation-of the virus takes from ten days to a month before 
it manifests itself by sensible symptoms. 

6. The matter employed for the inoculation has, in general, no effect 
upon an animal previously inoculated or having had the disease. 

7. The inoculated animal braves the epizoétic: influences with impu- 
nity, and fattens better and more rapidly than those in the same atmo- 
sphere with it that have not been inoculated. 

8. The inoculation should be performed with prudence and circum- 
Spection upon lean animals in preference, and towards the tenth day 
atter the operation a saline purge may be given, and repeated if neces- 
sary. 

9. By inoculating pleuro-pneumonia a new disease is produced; the 
affection of the lungs, with all its peculiar characters, is localized in 
some sort on the exterior. 

10. The virus obtained from oxen affected with pneumonia is of a na- 
ture entirely specific; it does not always act as a virus; the bovine race 
alone is affected by its inoculation, while no other animals of different 
races, inoculated in the same manner, and with the same liquid, experi- 
ence any ill effects. 

Dr. Willems accomplished-much in his earlier experiments, as will be 
seen by comparing the knowledge of the present day with the results of 
his original investigations. One cause contributed to strengthen the 
hands of his adversaries, and this was attempting to prove that specific 
and characteristic elements distinguished the virus of pleuro-pneumonia. 

Dr. Willems says: . , 

IT have examined various pathological specimens with the object of studying and 
elucidating the question of inoculation, My investigations have been principally 
directed to diseased lungs, and to a kind of tubercle hitherto overlooked, but which I 
have, nevertheless, constantly met with upon opening the dead bodies of animals that 
died from pleuro-pneumonia. These tubercles, scattered throughout the intestines, but 
principally in the lesser one, are of a size varying from the head of a pin to that of a 
large pea, of a yellowish or greenish color; they are seated in the submucous cellular 
tissue, and partly in the thickness of the mucous membrane of the intestine. They do 
not appear to have any relation with the glands of Peyer or of Brunner. Are they 
hypertrophied follicles? Nothing appears to prove it; no opening is perceived in them. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 59 


They are formed of a homogeneous, whitish matter, more or less. hard, showing under 
the microscope granulous kernels and an innumerable quantity of small elementary 
corpuscles, which enjoy a molecular motion, and which are also met with in diseased 
lungs. I have examined under the microscope parts of the lings of animals diseased 
with pneumonia, with a power magnifying four hundred and fifty diameters, which is 
higher than that employed by Professor Gluge in his beautiful anatomico-pathological 
researches upon pleuro-pneumonia. The exudated matter presented no structure. I 
met with no other anatomical elements than granular cells and elementary corpuscles, 
provided with a particular motion, the whole pretty much resembling an inflammatory 
exudation, remarkable for its great quantity. The plastic exudation is formed in so 
rapid a manner, and in such considerable quantity, that anatomical elements of a 
superior development to that of these cells could not be produced in them; conse- 
quently no cells or globules of pus (I have never found any) or fibers are ever met with 
there. The energy of the cellular tissue appears to exhaust itself upon too large a 
quantity of exudated matter for the latter to be carried to a higher degree of organiza- 
tion. It is the same as is observed sometimes in the regeneration of tissues; in the 
section of nerves, for example, and in the fracture of bones, when the exuded liquid 
is in too large a quantity, or the fragments are too much separated, a part of the 
liquid being beyond the circle of action of the energy of existing tissues, always 
remains at an inferior degree of development to that of the neighboring tissues. What 
is most important to be shown here, and of which no one has hitherto spoken, is the 
existence in diseased lungs of small corpuscles, endowed with a molecular motion, 
which appears sometimes to be made in a given direction. They are like corpuscles in 
process of formation, the motion of which resembles that of the granules of pigment, 
as well as those which surround the corpuscles of the tuberculous matter in man. In 
all my microscopical researches I have constantly found the same. 

Wishing to know whether these corpuscles exist in any other substances than those 
already examined, I submitted to the microscope— 

1. The saliva of a healthy ox under epizobtic influence. 

. The saliva of a diseased cow towards the third stage of the disease. 

. The urine of the same cow. 

. The blood of the same cow. 

. The blood of a healthy ox under epizoétic influence for five months. 

. The blood of a healthy ox not under epizodtic influence. 

. Parts of the liver and of the large right pectoral muscle from a diseased cow. 

In none of these matters did I find the small corpuscles with molecular motion, which I 
have constantly met with in the lungs and in the intestinal tubercles of animals affected 
with pleuro-pneumonia. That, then, is the principal seat of the disease. Are these cor- 
puscles primitive or consequent on the disease? This question cannot be decided now ; 
I only wish here to verify their presence in pleuro-pneumonia. 

I examined with the microscope parts of the skin of an ox that died of inoculation. 
I there found the same microscopical elements and the same chemical characters as in 
the lungs diseased with pneumonia. 


Professor Gluge, one of the members of the Belgian commission 
appointed to inquire into the efficacy of inoculation, reported, on the 
10th of July, 1852, as follows: 


It results, from the demonstrations made by Dr. Willems and our own researches— 
1. That epizoétie pleuro-pneumonia has no characteristic anatomical products appre- 


2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 


ciable by the microscope. 

2. That the inflammatory product is not distinguished from any other product of 
inflammation by anatomical character. 

3. That M. Willems’s assertions are not accurate. 

4. That this circumstance, doubtless unfortunate, does not in any way prejudice the 
practical question, which it appears to me ought to be especially examined, 


60 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


But Professor Verheyen, who was the president of this commission, 
continued until his death to throw discredit on the preservative efficacy 
of inoculation, and though he based most of his conclusions on hypo- 
theses, he was ready to avail himself of everything that presented itself 
to strengthen his position. 

Three commissions were almost simultaneously at work to ascertain 
the merits of Dr. Willems’s discovery. 

The first in Holland, appointed on the 17th of April, 1852, consisted 
of the director and professors of the veterinary school at Utrecht.* 

From the 14th of June, 1852, to the 9th of July following, the com- 
mission inoculated for fourteen proprietors two hundred and forty-seven 
head of cattle of various ages and condition. In this number there were 
one hundred and fifty-four milch cows, six young cows that had not yet 
calved, thirty-two heifers, and fifty-five calves. The phenomena of the 
operation were not manifested at once onall the beasts that were subjected 
toit. The proportions between the inoculation and its consequences are 
nearly constant in milch cows and heifers; they are found to be about 
as three to two. In calves, on the contrary, the proportion is less; it is 
as four anda quarter to one. A great difference was observed in the effects 
on cattle of different proprietors. Thus, out of thirteen milch cows 
belonging to Degroot, four only experienced the consequences, while 
with the cattle belonging to Wynen, it was successful in eighteen out of 
twenty; and yet the matter used for the inoculation at these two farms 
came from the same lung. Other similar variations were observed, 
and were not attributed exclusively by the commission to a greater or 
less predisposition to pleuro-pneumonia. They thought it more proba- 
ble explanation of the fact that the disease, raging with greater vio- 
lence and upon a greater number of beasts in one stable than another, 
existed in germ at the time of inoculation, although there were no symp- 
toms to indicate it. Thence it was, then, that with one exception 
pleuro-pneumonia caused the greatest losses to the proprietors on whose 
cattle the inoculation took least. The inoculated beasts that the com- 
mission had to report on as having been attacked by pleuro-pneumonia, 
were sixteen in number. Although this figure, they say, is pretty con- 
siderable, it proves in no wise to the disadvantage of the preservative 
power of the inoculation; for it was to be expected that cases of pleuro- 
pneumonia, more or less numerous, would present themselves among 
the cattle subjected to the operation, since they had been stabled with 
infected animals, and at the time of performing it there were still several 
affected with the disease. “ We cannot omit to state,” adds the reporter, 
‘that upon none of these animals was the inoculation succeeded by local 
phenomena.” The opinion of those who thought that pleuro-pneumonia 
acquires by inoculation a milder character, and terminates more favor- 
ably, was not confirmed; the greater number of the animals attacked. 


* Further papersrespecting pleuro-pneumonia in cattle, presented to the British House 
Ss] ; 
of Commons by command of her Majesty, December 6, 1852. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 61 


perished. The operation had not the least influence upon the beasts. 
which, at the time it, was performed, were evidently affected with pleuro- 

pneumonia. Several beasts that were known for some time to have been 

affected with pleuro-pneumonia experienced not the least effect from 

the inoculation. 

The report from which the above has been extracted bears the date 
of the 21st of September, 1852, and the results are indicated by the 
annexed table. 

The second report, bearing date of the 28th of December, 1852, and 
prepared by the same commission, furnishes facts recorded in oe sub- 
joined table. 

The conclusions drawn from the experiments were summarized as fol- 
lows: 

1. Although the inoculation of pleuro-pneumonia is not, in all respects, 
an inoffensive operation—as extensive derangements and even death 
may result from it—its-effects are generally confined to the part where 
it has been applied. 

2. In order to prevent, as much as possible, its unfavorable conse- 
quences, it is necessary to use some precaution, both in the selection of 
the matter for inoculation and the period of its application. The sea- 
son, the atmospheric circumstances, the state of nutrition, exert consid- 
siderable influence upon the success. The autumn appears, for more 
than one reason, to be the most suitable period. 

3. When an intense action and serious casualties appear locally and 
in the more distant organs, they may be attributed to exterior cireum- 
stances and to the individual constitution. This being the case, casu- 
alties cannot always be avoided. 

4, If serious complications appear and affect the essential organs so as 
to cause the reaction of the whole organism, it is as difficult to prevent 
them and arrest their progress as it is to cure pleuro- pneumonia. 

5. In the violent cases, terminating in death, lesions in the thorax or 
the lungs have never been met; hitherto they have always been concen- 
trated in the abdominal cavity. , 

6. The inoculation produces no unfavorable effects either upon the 
constitution or the yield of milk, while its action is limited to a local 
affection. Only in the cases where abundant deposits succeed a too 
intense local action do the animals continue sickly during some time. 

7. The operation has not had a determined influence on the excitement 
of strum. In proportion this has been more frequent on the inocu- 
lated than on the uninoculated cows. It is, however, to be remarked 
that No. 25 has not yet been in heat, although the period for it has long 
‘since passed. 

8. The return of the uterine heats with the two cows Nos. & and 12, 
probably in consequence of abortion, can the less be referred to the inoc- 
ulation, as these two cases are isolated, and the effects were not observed 


62 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


in Nos. 19, 21, and 23, which were very markedly subject to sexual excite- 
ment. ; 

9. It cannot be determined with complete certainty whether the pre- 
mature parturition of a cow near her time, (No. 10,) as well as the con- 
secutive phenomena observed in the mother and the calf, are to be attrib- 
uted to the inoculation; it is the same with the cow No. 14, which calved 
before her time. These circumstances are, however, of a nature to dis- 
courage the inoculation of females in an advanced stage of gestation. 

10. As abortion is frequent in the course of pleuro-pneumonia, it can- 
not be passed over in silence that this complication has never appeared 
with the beasts that have suffered so seriously from the inoculation as 
to sink under it. If, therefore, the operation has any influence upon ges- 
tation, it can only be in the last stage. 

11. The hypothesis, already proposed in our first report, that the evo- 
lution of pleuro-pneumonia after the inoculation ought to be attributed 
to the existence of the germ of the disease before the operation, notwith- 
standing the absence of every morbid phenomenon, acquires a higher 
degree of probability from our experiments. 

12. The opinion of those who hold that cattle that have had pleuro- 
pneumonia, and have recovered, do not contract it a second time, or at 
least rarely, and that the inoculation is performed without success upon 
these individuals, is again confirmed by No. 16, which was inoculated 
twice, but in vain. 

15. Our experiments furnish the remarkable proof that a power, at 
least temporary, of securing against the contagion of pleuro-pneumonia 
cannot be denied to the inoculation; it remains uncertain, however, to 
what extent the predisposition to contract this disease is destroyed, either 
entirely or for a limited time. Much time will be necessary, from the 


very nature of the question, before a positive solution of it can be arrived. 


at. 

Verheyen, as president reporter of the Belgian commission, issued a 
report dated Brussels, February 6, 1853. It opened in the following 
terms : 

In a first report, embracing the period from the 24th of May to the 15th of July, 1852, 
it is stated that the commission had inoculated, either by the operations of its members 
or under its supervision, 189 beasts of the bovine race of all ages and both sexes. Hight 
herds, numbering 129 head, inhabited stables in which pneumonia had lately raged, or 
was still raging at the time of the inoculation; eight other herds, composed of sixty 
beasts, abode in healthy localities, or such as were considered healthy, forasmuch as 
they had never been visited by the disease, or that the scourge had spared them at 
least for the last eighteen months. 

We made it appear— 

1. That the operation had been followed by effects upon all the cattle inoculated. 

2. That the matter had remained inert upon two cows that we knew to have escaped 
from exudative pleuro-pneumonia. ; 

3. That five cows had perished from the consequences of inoculation. 

4. That two had lost the whole of their tails. 

5. That six had partially lost them. 


——— 


—_— Nee eee EL 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 63 


6. That four caives had been seized with an articular affection. 

7. That, contrary to Mr. Willems’s observations, the insertion of the matter in the 
tails of calves produced a local affection there. 

8. That finally, at the moment of dispatching that first report, M. Dele informed the 
commission that a case of pleuro-pneumonia had just appeared at the Abbey of La 
Trappe upon an inoculated cow. 

The favorable situation certified on the 15th of July has been maintained, with but 
one exception, for the individuals of those herds which the proprietors still possess. 
The articular affection observed in four cows has not occurred again; therefore a sim- 
ple coincidence must be admitted, and this casualty explained independent of inocu- 
lation. ° 


The commission resolved on extending its operations, and this they 
did by associating with themselves all the country veterinary practi- 
tioners, in accordance with the organization of the civil veterinary ser- 
vice in Belgium; and secondly, by undertaking a series of direct experi- 
ments. 


The government on its part did not remain inactive. It organized local commissions 
charged with the supervision of the operations; the losses occasioned by the inocula- 
tion were assimilated to those of animals slaughtered on account of public benefit ; it 
undertook to pay the difference between the estimated price and the selling price of 
the inoculated beasts, which, contracting exudative pleuro-pneumonia, should be sent by 
their proprietors to the shambles, and of which the officers at the latter would make 
declarations to the authorities. 


Further on M. Verheyen says: 


Wishing to free the inoculation from the numerous accessory questions which that 
practice occasions, the commission adopted for its experiments, and submitted to the 
minister of the interior for his sanction, this simple programme: 

‘1. To purchase sound beasts ; to watch them during a certain time, in order to be 
assured of the integrity of their pulmonary organs. 

2. To request M. Willems to inoculate them. 

3. Only to admit.as preserved those in which that physician should have recognized 
the specific inflammation caused by a productive inoculation, and which he should have 
pronounced to be in the enjoyment of the immunity. 

4, To have the beasts cohabit with animals afflicted with exudative pleuro-pneumo- 
nia, at the same time placing some inoculated animals in identical conditions. 

A first batch of eight cows and heifers of Ardennes breed, selected in localities free 
from exudative pleuro-pneumonia, arrived at the veterinary school. M. Willems inoc- 
ulated them on the 16th of August; on the 11th of September, those numbered 1, 2, 3, 
5, 6, and 8 were examined by M. Willems, who declared that the inoculation had suc- 
ceeded in those beasts. 

On the same day he inoculated eight other beasts purchased by M. Windelinex, on 
account of the commission, at the fair of Tirlemont. We cannot affirm that they were, 
like the preceding, from a locality free from pleuro-pneumonia ; we gained, however, 
by a rigorous and repeated examination, the certainty that the thoracic organs were 
intact. At the same sitting, M. Willems reinoculated the two Ardennes cows num- 
bered 4 and 7. 

All showing themselves still refractory on the 29th of September, M. Willems was 
apprised of it; the letter was unanswered. 

On the 10th of October an ox—that marked No. 2—of the herd that came from Tirle- 
mont, exhibited a swelling at the end of the tail. That portion of the caudal append- 
age being seized with dry mortification, was eliminated. 

On the 18th October three members of the commission proceeded to a fresh inocu- 


lation. They operated upon the Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5,7, and 8, from Tirlemont, and upon the 
Ardennes cow No. 4. 


64 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


The No. 7 of the latter breed, and the No. 6 of the former, were reserved. 

Two of the Ardennes cows were successfully inoculated, Nos. 5 and 6, having been iso- 
latedin astable, cohabited from the 24th of September with pneumonic beasts. When it 
was certain that the operation had had a negative result upon the Ardennes cow No. 
7, and after the cicatrization of the puncture, the same locality was assigned to it, on 
the 1st of October, for abode. . 

The ox No. 2, from Tirlemont, entered there on the 23d of October, and the heifer No. 
6 on the 25th of the same month. 

A third inoculation performed on the 18th of November, upon the beasts from Tirle- 
mont, Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8, was not more efficacious that the preceding. 

From the 24th of September, the date of the experiment, there has only occurred a 
first space of one day, and a second of eight, during which the stable has not contained 
pneumonic beasts; the number of the cattle has varied from one to three. Up to this 
day the three inoculated beasts, and the two upon which the inoculation was unsuc- 
cessful, have experienced no attack from the cohabitation with infected animals. 

Two aged cows, inoculated by M. Willems, at Hasselt, entered the same locality on 
the 15th of November. 

On the 28th of September, two of the Ardennes beasts, Nos. 3 and 8, were dispatched 
to Tirlemont to be placed in infected stables there, by the care and under the superin- 
tendence of M. Windelinex. 

A third experiment, intrusted to M. Dele, has been organized at Deurne, inthe prov- 
ince of Antwerp. The superior of the abbey of La Trappe has been pleased to place 
at the disposal of the commission, for this purpose, two heifers belonging to the com- 
munity, and which were inoculated with the least equivocal success, on the 27th of 
May, 1852. 

On the 30th of October the Ardennes beasts Nos. 1, 2, and 4 were conducted to Huy, 
where a fourth experiment is being carried out under the superintendence of MM. Mar- 
cops and Guérin. 

Not one of the animals inoculated, successfully or unsuccessfully, has contracted exu- 
dative pleuro-pneumonia. 


While these experiments were going on, fifty-four veterinary surgeons, 
including Dr. Willems, inoculated 5,301 head of cattle. They consisted 
in— 


Beasts tattemimes | - 2220 2. 42 Site te sets See Pee eee 2, 732 
ean oxen or milch cows...-.---..--'-- Haas pie Sic oe are 2,189 
Walyes and youn Cable. oc. a. ae ote eee ee ee ei ee 380 

OGAL  S's he ccc » ope ciepe ener ee eke te See eae ee 5, 301 
Beasts living in‘ healthy stables: 2. oo. see ee tee ee = 2, 330 
Beasts living in infected ‘stables.”.\ 222. 2is22 2 vere = 2, 971 

i ee err eee enemas cee AS. . em 5, 301 
Beasts*suecesstully inoculated). 2 een - = 2'~ mee 4, 324 
imvhealthy (stalled is. SE 2) ee A Uae che SR Se 2, 030 
iin: infected. stableseed Ih. o0% 2 Ree ee. hoi 2, 294 

Nogiall..-<,.. 5 Gnese Seee AS -pate, Sit pee Se = = 4, 324 


Highty-six, including eleven beasts inoculated in the dewlap, died 
from the consequences of the inoculation. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 65 


Seventy-four lost the tail up to the root. 

Three hundred and four lost it in part. 

Seventy-three contracted exudative pleuro-pneumonia after having 
been successfully inoculated. 

After careful examination it resulted at fifty-five cases of exudative 
pleuro-pneumonia, well attested, occurred upon beasts inoculated with 
unequivocal success. The space of time which elapsed with these ani- 
mals between the inoculation and the first appearance of the pneumonia 
symptoms, varies 17 to 136 days. 

After an elaborate analysis of cases in which the inoculation seems to 
have been effectual, of others in which the operation and immunity 
seemed to be coincidences, and lastly of those in which it was not pre- 
servative, the commission concludes: 

1. That the inoculation with the liquid extracted from a lung hepatized in consequence 
of exudative pleuro-pneumonia, is not an absolute preservative against that disease. 

2. That the phenomena succeeding the inoculation may occur several times upon the 
same animal, whether it has or has not been affected with exudative pleuro-pneumonia, 
and that the two affections may go on simultaneously in one and the same individual; 
considerable derangements appear at the inoculated part, while the morbid action of 
the lungs progresses towards a fatal termination. 

As to the point whether inoculation really possesses a preservative virtue, and in 
that case, in what proportion and for what duration it maintains the immunity in the 
animals that have undergone it, this question can only be resolved by ulterior researches. 

A summary of inoculations performed andresults obtained is appended 
in a tabular form at the close of the report. 

We now come to the, experiments of the French commission, and it 
must not be forgotten that, in connection with the subject of the trans- 
mission of the lung plague by contact, this commission had resorted to 
inoculation independently of any suggestions on the part of Dr. Willems. 

The general résumé, ably set forth by Professor Bouley, is regarded 
up to the present day as having done much to diffuse a rational belief in 
the efficacy of inoculation, and the experiments were conducted with 
great care and skill. 

Experiments were instituted by the commission— 

First. To ascertain whether pleuro-pneumonia is susceptible of being 
transmitted to healthy animals by the inoculation of blood, saliva, nasal 
discharge, and excrementitial matters from animals affected with the 
disease. ‘ 

Second. Have animals thus inoculated enjoyed any immunity against , 
the contagious influence of the lung plague? 

Third. Is pleuro-pneumonia capable of being transmitted, in all its 
forms and characteristic symptoms, to healthy cattle by the inoculation 
of the liquid extracted from the lungs of a sick animal? 

Fourth. In the case where inoculation of this liquid does not determine 
on healthy animals an exact repetition of the form and symptoms of the 
original disease, what are the local or general phenomena which result? 
In what proportion and to what extent do these characters, more or less 
severe, transmit themselves? How many animals die after inoculation? 

5 


66 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


How many recover their health after having been subjected to this test, 
and under what conditions? 

Fifth. Do the animals subjected to this proof of inoculation with pul- 
monary liquid acquire the power of resisting the contagion of pleuro- 
pheumonia? 

The experiments made to solve the question whether pleuro-pneumonia 
was contagious by the inoculation of the blood, saliva, nasal mucus, &e., 
having been performed only on six animals, the commission has not 
deemed them sufficient in number to form the basis of any conclusion. 
Nevertheless, it was thought right to mention that the two cows inocu- 
lated with the nasal discharge, and subjected to the proof of contagion 
by cohabitation, have not been affected with pleuro-pneumonia. 

Experiments by inoculating the liquid from. the lungs of sick cattle 
have been performed on fifty-four healthy animals, and under conditions 
which indicated that these animals had never previously contracted the 
disease. Of these fifty-four subjects inoculated none have shown symp- 
toms of pleuro-pneumonia as the result of inoculation. On twenty-three 
the effects of inoculation have only been indicated by a slight local and 
well-circumscribed inflammation. On twenty-one the inflammation has 
been very severe, very extensive, and complicated by gangrenous phe- 
nomena which have led to the death of six subjects. Therefore the num- 
ber of animals in which inoculation has been benignant has amounted to 
61.11 per cent.; the proportion of those having gangrene after the oper- 
ation, which resulted in the loss of a portion of the tail, was 27.77 per 
cent.; lastly, the deaths attained 11.11 per cent. Thus 88.88 per cent. 
of ‘the inoculated animals recovered, and 11.11 per cent. died. 

Of the forty-eight subjects which came out of the inoculation safe and 
healthy two died of accidents not induced by the operation, and thirty- 
four were exposed for a period of five or six months to the direct inilu- 
ence of contagion by cohabitation with twenty-four subjects that had not 
been inoculated, and which had to serve as a means of comparison. 

Twelve inoculated animals which had been placed in separate stables 
to serve for ulterior experiments were not exposed to the direct contact 
of such cattle, but were looked after by the same person who had charge 
of the sick animals. 

Only one of the forty-six animals inoculated, viz., about two per cent., 
became affected with pleuro-pneumonia, whereas of the twenty-four non- 
inoculated animals fourteen, or fifty-eight per cent., suffered. 

From these experiments the commission concludes: 

1. The inoculation of the liquid extracted from the lungs of an animal 
affected with pleuro-pneumonia does not transmit to healthy animals of 
the same species the same disease—at all events, so far as its Seat is con- 
cerned. ; 

2. The appreciable phenomena which follow the inoculation are those 
of a local inflammation, which is circumscribed and slight, on a certain 
number of the animals inoculated; extensive and diffuse, with general 
reaction proportioned to the local disease, and complicated by gangrenous 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 67 


accidents, on another number of the inoculated animals, so that even death 
may result. 

3. The inoculation of the liquid from the lungs of an animal affected 
with pleuro-pneumonia exerts a preservative influence, and invests the 
economy of the larger number of animals subjected to its influence with 
an immunity which protects them from the contagion of this malady 
during a period which has yet to be determined, but which the experi- 
ments quoted indicated, at all events, not to be less than six months. 

Although, from the experiments of the commission, the losses per 
cent. among the animals inoculated were greater than the losses by the 
disease communicated by cohabitation, they ascribed this partly to the 
imperfect means adopted in inoculating, and they do not overlook the 
great deterioration of the animals which did not die after suffering from 
the natural disorder. They recommended further trials, and that the 
practice should be encouraged. 

A mixed commission of the central society of medicine and the agri- 
cultural committee of Lille instituted experiments on one thousand two 
hundred and forty-five animals to determine the comparative effects of 
inoculation of the pulmonary liquid of pleuro-pneumonia and of septic 
matters. The inoculations with virus amounted to one thousand two 
hundred and sixteen; of these nine hundred and seventy-eight succeeded 
and two hundred and thirty-eight showed no visible effects. One hun- 
dred and seventy-nine animals, or 14.72 per cent., lost a part of the tail; 
seventeen, or 1.39 per cent., died; lastly, twenty-nine animals, or 2.38 per 
cent., were seized with pleuro-pneumonia, and of these eight succumbed. 
Twenty-nine head of cattle were inoculated with decomposing matter, 
and only two without local effect resulting. Ten lost a portion of the 
tail, viz., thirty-four per cent. Of these animals three caught pleuro- 
pneumonia, and one of these died. The Lille committee regarded the 
process and results of inoculation as involved in doubts and uncertainties. 

In England attention was directed to inoculation by consuls from 
abroad, and Professors Simonds and Morton were commissioned to pro- 
ceed to Belgium, investigate the matter, and then to institute experi- 
ments at home. The result obtained, after much too limited observation, 
was pronounced against the practice. This sufficed to prevent the prac- 
tice of the operation among veterinarians, and the London cow-feeders 
alone resorted to the plan, in a very partial and imperfect manner. 

I witnessed many bad results in 1854 and 1855, and a case which came 
under my observation on the 4th of May, 1856, in which putrid matter 
that had been kept in an ink-bottle for a long time was used, led me to 
pronounce a somewhat cautious but adverse opinion on the Highland 
Society’s transactions for that year. 

My efforts were afterwards directed to an exposure of the evils of 
indiscriminate sale of healthy and sick cattle in public markets, and 
Tinsisted on the slaughter and isolation of sick and infected cattle. The 
little support I received at home led me, in 1863, to call together the first 
international veterinary congress, which was held in Hamburg, and 


68 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


there I met veterinarians from all parts of Europe who had steadily per- 
severed in the practice of inoculation and could furnish me with reliable 
data. Itis impossible, and indeed it would be superfluous, to give a very 
detailed account of the thousands and tens’of thousands of cases which 
have led to the almost universal opinion that inoculation is the best 
means in the majority of instances to check the ravages of pleuro-pneu- 
monia. The observations have been made in all parts where pleuro- 
pneumonia has appeared, though opposition to the practice is scarcely 
overcome to the extent that is desirable. 

The efforts of Professor Verheyen in Belgium and his many attacks 
on Dr. Willems’s method, approved as they have been by some in that 
country, only illustrate once more the adage that a man is not a prophet 
in his own country. But Professor Thiervene, who was one of the original 
Belgian commissioners, and at first among the decided skeptics, delivered 
an address before the Royal Academy of Medicine in Brussels in 1866, in 
reply to one by M. Boéns, who had attacked the practice of inoculation, 
in which he vindicates Dr. Willems’s position. He indorses Professor 
Saint Cyr’s remarks on the demonstration of a preservative influence by 
the most accurate and extensive experiments, and shows that of the well- 
informed in Belgium, who are acquainted with the characters of the con- 
tagious pleuro-pneumonia, none now doubt that inoculation is a safe and 
certain preservative. 

Medical men, no less than veterinarians, have a duty to perform in 
relation to this subject. Boards of health in cities and country districts 
should take up the subject in connection with the sale of the meat and milk 
of animals affected with pleuro-pneumonia. History shows that in those 
countries, such as England, where the sale of the produce of these animals 
has been most unrestricted, the traffic in such cattle has been so great as 
to cause the most severe losses by the disease, and without intermission. 

An objection to inoculation, which weighs in the case of human and 
ovine small-pox, as well as rinderpest, is that the inoculated disease is 
contagious, that the cohabitation of healthy with inoculated animals may 
lead to extensions of the disorderly infection, and that the foci whence 
the disease spreads are always on the increase. Such objections cannot 
weigh against the inoculation for the lung plague, as the inoculated mal- 
ady is not communicated except by reinoculation. My observations on 
this point are very numerous, and I do not know of a single instance 
recorded, during the seventeen years that inoculation has been exten- 
sively practiced, in which contagion from inoculated animals has been 
witnessed. 

Another objection which has led, of late years, to the practice being 
checked among the cow-feeders of Brooklyn, is the sloughing of the tail 
and the animals splashing blood and matter from their sore tails into the 
milk-cans. All this arises from the operation being performed by per- 
sons who know nothing of the precautions to be used, and especially of 
the proper selection and preservation of the virus. Accidents will hap- 
pen; but out of nearly two thousand inoculations I have had a loss of less 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 69 


than one per cent. by death, and under five, per cent. of the tails have 
lost their tips. This includes my earlier trials, and the results would be 
more favorable if I excluded them from my calculations. 


PRECAUTIONS. 


The prevention of pleuro-pneumonia by inoculation demands, therefore, 
special attention, first, to the condition of herds operated on; second, selee- 
tion of proper virus; third, the preservation of that virus from decom- 
position; fourth, the proper performance of the operation. 

First. As to the condition of stock, it may be said that at any season 
and under any system of management, whether cattle are being grazed, 
stall-fed, used for breeding purposes, or fattening for the butcher’s stall, 
inoculation may be resorted to. It should be practiced so soon as there 
is reason to believe a herd has been in danger of infection or actually 
infected. The first case of well-marked lung plague on a farm or in a 
dairy shed should be the starting point for careful isolation, and the 
inoculation of all apparently healthy animals. The disease rarely mani- 
fests all its virulence until the third month after the introduction of a sick 
animal among a lot of cattle, but the longer the inoculation is delayed 
the more likely is it that the operation will be performed on animals 
during the stage of invasion of the natural disease, and the result is < 
loss which is sometimes ascribed to the inefficacy of the preventive. 
In cities where the lung plague has been rife for any length of time, and 
it is necessary to make frequent purchases, although a great deal in. the 
way of prevention may be effected by judicious purchases of animals in 
healthy districts, it is best to resort regularly to inoculation. Dairymen 
should strive to buy more cows at a time, and at regular intervals, instead 
of picking up a chance bargain or making it a rule to go to the market 
weekly, as has been often the custom in both England and America. It 
matters not if the cow is about to calve or has just calved; nothing should 
induce the dairyman or the farmer in an infected district to run a risk. 
It is desirable to keep animals clean and well littered on straw or saw- 
dust, as at times the tails that have been operated on are permanently 
in excrement and urine, which may poison the wound with decomposing 
matter. 

Second. The selection of proper virus is a matter that should be 
intrusted to veterinarians, who can detect the various stages of the dis- 
ease. It is during the first stage of a mild case that the interlobular 
tissue of the lung is found distended with a yellow gelatinous serum, 
which is fluid so long as the lungs are hot, and is not readily contami- 
nated by other inflammatory products and blood. When a large portion 
of lung has been so far consolidated as to present an almost uniform dark 
red or purplish color, it should be discarded, and especially in cases where 
a piece of the organ has become gangrenous and detached, or where liquid 
in the cavity of the chest and around the lungs is decidedly fetid. Micro- 
scopic examination will indicate, by the presence of movable rods and 
floating molecules, the putrefactive changes, and that should cause us to 


70 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


discard any such source of virus. A clear pleural fluid is often very use- 
ful for preservation, but perhaps greater reliance is to be placed on the 
exudation of a piece of lung in the first stage of the malady. The lung 
is placed on a tolerably wide strainer, or bits of wood, over a clean stone- 
ware, glass, or porcelain dish or bowl; it is cut in various directions, and 
a stout piece of cloth or flannel is placed over the whole to confine the 
heat and prevent dust falling on the lung or liquid. It is better to place 
the dish or bowl over a warm water or sand bath at 100°, so as to pre- 
vent gelatinization. In a short time, according to the condition and 
quantity of lung, a sufficient quantity of clear yellow-colored liquid is 
obtained. Sometimes blood accidentally tinges the material, and this is 
not necessarily a disadvantage. 

The old plan of keeping pieces of lung to inoculate with, and bot- 
tling up anything and everything to secure a fetid compound, which 
was kept for months, must be regarded as the most certain means to 
insure accidents as the results of inoculation. 

Third. The preservation of the virus for periodic inoculations has 
certainly been a desideratum. Had farmers and dairymen had the facil- 
ities for procuring material which could be used with safety in their 
stock, they would long since have tried a method that, even when badly 
carried out, is beneficial to them. Dr. Sticker, of Cologne, has preserved 
the virus in ‘hermetically-closed tubes containing from one to two 
drachms. Oneofthese glasses is emptied into a small glass, and from one 
to two parts of rain water added. This is not desirable. A plan has 
occurred to me of utilizing the tubes referred to in Drs. Billings and 
Surtis’s report, which I am sure wiil meet the requirements of the case. 
Tubes about four inches in length, three-eighths of an inch in diameter, 
and tapering at either end, are sealed at one end in a blow-pipe flame, 
and then heated throughout their length to redness. The operation is 
concluded by closing the other end in the same way. ‘The air in the 
tube is rarefied, all germs of decay destroyed, and there is no difficulty 
in further manipulations. When a proper quantity of liquid is obtained 
one point of the tube is passed into it, the tip broken off, and the virus 
is sucked in to fill the vacuum. A spirit lamp is held near the liquid 
and the point of the tube transferred from this to the flame. By the 
aid of a blow-pipe the sealing is effected, and thus protected the virus 
will keep for months. The test for discarding tubes thus prepared is a 
microscopical ove, and consists in the detection of bacteria or evidences 
of putrefaction in the liquid. 

Fourth. The inoculation of cattle is most safely practiced on the tip 
of the tail. All parts that are loose, and from which any extensive 
exudation may spread over the connective tissue beneath the skin, must 
be avoided. The lips, dewlap, and root of the tail have proved dangerous 
localities. When the operation is properly and delicately performed, 
the tip of the ear is said to be safe, but on the whole the end of the tail 
is after long experience found to be the best. 

Dairymen have frequently resorted to the plan of making an incision 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. i i | 


of an inch or two in length, inserting in the part a piece of lung, and 
bandaging; swelling, inflammation, sloughing of the tail, secondary 
deposits in the lymphatic glands and other parts of the organs, have 
frequently resulted from this rude practice. 

Dr. Willems first described his mode of inoculation as follows: “TI 
take the liquid pressed from an animal recently slaughtered, or of one 
that has died of the disease; I plunge into it a kind of large lancet; 
then I make two or three punctures at the lower extremity of the tail of 
the animal that I wish to preserve from the disease; a singie drop of the 
liquid is sufficient to make the inoculation.” 

At one time Dr. Willems adopted the plan of making two punctures, 
one on the upper part and the other on the lower surface of the tip of the 
tail, and both about the same distance from the extreme end of the 
organ. He found that this frequently led to afusion of the exudation 
commencing around each puncture, and the result was the sloughing of 
the tail. He therefore resorted to the punctures disposed vertically in a 
line with the tail and about three inches from each other. By this 
means the exudations commencing at the two spots had no tendency to 
coalesce and lead to untoward results. 

Various instruments have been suggested for the operation. Dr. 
Sticker devised a hollow stilet with a sharp diamond-shaped point. 
The stilet is armed with a little india-rubber tube, and this passed into 
a wooden handle, with a spring, whereby the flexible tube could be 
squeezed for the expulsion of air,and by placing the point of the instru- 
ment in the prepared liquid, sufficient is sucked in for an inoculation. 
J have used this instrument as follows: 

The end of the tail being firmly held in the left hand, the point of the’ 
instrument is plunged with the right hand superficially into the skin of 
the tip of the tail, and directed from before backwards, so that any 
effort to withdraw the tail would only hasten the operation. I can testify 
from practice to the simplicity and efficacy of Dr. Sticker’s instrument 
as used by me. I have preferred the plan of operating to Dr. Sticker’s 
method, which consists in charging his instrument, holding the tail 
firmly, and then pushing the stilet about one inch forward into the tail, 
and by a simultaneous pressure upon the key, and a slight winding 
motion, the virus is deposited beneath the skin and in the substance of 
the organ. Dr. Sticker proposed making a channel with the instru- 
ment—a channel downwards from which exudation might flow; but this 
is of no avail if septic matter is used, and untoward symptoms result. 
The result of Dr. Sticker’s operation, according to. his description, 1s a 
local swelling occurring about the eighth or ninth day, and which 
increases the tail from three to four lines in diameter and extends over 
a length of one and a half to two inches; incisions have not been neces- 
sary after the operation, and the tails have not mortified. The inoculated 
cattle do not lose their appetites and the flow of milk is not diminished. 
Dr. Sticker considers it important that the virus should be deposited in the 
connective tissue beneath the skin and not deep in the muscles of the tail. 


2 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


But with the tubes proposed to preserve the liquid a very simple plan 
consists in using a small bistoury or lancet, scarifying the upper surface 
of the tail an inch or so from the end, and from this part the hair may 
be clipped off with a pair of scissors; the scarification must be superficial - 
and blood should not be drawn if possible; the tube is taken and both 
ends broken off; a little rubber ball or tube is fixed onto one end, and 
by pressing this a few drops of liquid are dropped in the scarification. 
This is the safest method, as there is no doubt of the virus being applied 
to an absorbent surface, and the method of collection affords a guar- 
antee of its purity; the tubes are thus kept hermetically sealed till 
needed, and from the way they are used there is no loss of material. 

The results of successful inoculation are somewhat various; by some 
methods the swelling is considerable, and many tails slough. It is not 
a little remarkable that cows do not often fail to enjoy immunity from 
the disease after sloughing of the organ; it might, @ priori, have been 
supposed that the acute inflammation and gangrene would have pre- 
vented the specific action of the virus on the system, and there is reason 
to believe that occasionally this does occur, as I have seen more than 
one case of pleuro-pneumonia in cows that had lost their tail after mocu- 
lation. 

But under favorable circumstances a slight heat and tumefaction 
occur round the puncture, at a period varying from a week to even sixty 
days. Commonly from the ninth to the fifteenth day the local erup- 
tion is visible, and if at all marked is attended with a little fever; a 
slight shiver, restlessness, and some loss of appetite, slightly checked 
secretion of milk, and constipation, may be néticed. I have repeat- 
edly inoculated all the cows in a dairy, and the owner has not sustained 
the slightest loss or inconvenience fromcows going off their milk ; indeed 
this is the rule. : 

No pustule, no suppuration, forms; untoward results consist in the 
excessive local swelling, or, if putrid matter has been used, in secondary 
deposits at the root of the tail, around the anus and other parts. One 
of the most remarkable cases I ever witnessed was one in which, on the 
seventeenth day after a carefully performed inoculation, both fore legs 
and brisket swelled up enormously, and the animal suffered intensely 
from fever and died on the fourth day. 

As arule, no after-treatment is necessary, inasmuch as the results are 
so slight that they even escape observation altogether. But when 
excessive swellings occur it is best to use cold applications, and nothing 
is better than a steady stream of cold water on the part at short inter- 
vals. Incisions are not always desirable, but where it is deemed advisa- 
ble to relieve great tension, they must be deep and free; the resulting 
wound must be washed with a solution of sesquichloride of iron or 
chloride of zinc, of the strength of four grains to the ounce of water. 
When the animal has much fever and is costive, a saline purge, such as 
a pound of Epsom salts, affords relief. 


THE LUNG PLAGUE. 13 « 


APPENDIX No. 1. 


Statement of losses by lung plague in cattle in the District of Columbia 
and vicinity, collected for Professor Gamgee, by Mr. G. Reid, Ingleside 
Farm, Washington, D. C. 


8 
os 

i 9.4 | © S 

Number. 2 dies alee a 

eth EG * ie ies 

é | é¢ 3 $ 

A A A Zi 
RS ee ao eee ee ae re ee) 5 1 2 ae 
emt eo TAT oii PUR ay UMN UE 5 Bt: bets 2 
meee eM LT IPL See AY iin el dace 30 lat s Bl ae 
Bummer) 2c uer toed 9s leeds AF Se ety: 18 {) | Saeed (eee 
“ade Pee ne nr Mae wr oa ae 30 | nee 2 
En os Fo 2 S28 ba ithe lh ee od 30 Tie 1 
Fong be seRRSE ERE RE EERE ar ee ese ees 22 A ast nae ee 
See joc do bees Sh di aleealeite cheatin ee 40 7a i ee 
Lys puedeee ee capl Geet al «celle naa as Sie a Ut iL ps AR SA aE el a 
Ree ere ee RL) UNITS OWN TUT ALE 1S. Eee brea). "Cae 
ieee itr. Nobusi ite bs faible fais AGU. Abe: es cere 
esate peti ood be oath eV ane OMe A Uys or arom! 12 |b Felpclll Ssehas 
Mt OM 2 he EA sd od tate ogee tee: 22 17 Bul eta 
8 Spe a td ei ee OP ows a Bale cine 
TE, o_o oe a ee err 12 10 2 2 
"Ea ce et el ane RE. Se GL ine eles ea a 16 Chalesedomaallae eben 
ia. age Boia Bi pe eas a ae gues en eee Se Bi | re ae A A, SO 
Shee el pat a AE ete I RMR ie GAS EE eg al aie [a 
Rpmmme cee S51. Enshun 1h cesnoyh aeaisl ve db da ahs ee sys EL ae Bile JAsab Selle so. 
ech! tig eas ne eee me eR 5 4 AB ca 
SO Ra fe Fob rch ects ea TE Reet ae SM 
SO... 2 2) Say Se ieee eon eee 25 C1 ann aie 
PES cote once CL a III ec ae ia BOS eas eae 3 
SEE a adie viata Sioa oS ais Sioa 3d SSE Se Saat ee 35 25 ee Aa ee 
Sf te. Se re ed 14 6 6) ae 
feces ay. ML) A eee ead Bs Tater 1 10) Renal SEM es 
Tip eee a 471 198 | 39 16 


DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


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15 


INOCULATION. 


EXPERIMENTS IN 


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ON THE ILL EFFECTS OF SMUTTY CORN ON CATTLE, 


BY JOHN GAMGEE, M. D. 


A CAUSE OF DRY MURRAIN. 


The opportunity presented itself, last fall, for an inquiry as to the 
manner in which smuts which attack plants may affect animals. The 
close of 1868 was, throughout America, very wet; a large amount of 
corn became smutty, that is to say, was attacked to a serious extent by 
ustilago maidis, and reports reached me from the west and south that 
cattle were dying in large numbers from a mysterious malady, the origin 
of which was unknown. From Mills County, Iowa, I was informed, late 
in November, that about the 12th of the month there was a fall of snow 
six inches deep, and the cattle, which usually roam at large on the 
prairies, were taken in by all the better farmers who had their corn 
gathered, and turned into the stalk fields. In about eight days the 
eattle began to die, and all presenting the same symptoms. My inform- 
ant, Mr. James Hull, of Plattsmouth, Nebraska, lost four out of nine- 
teen head, in fourteen days. This gentleman, alarmed at the number of 
deaths, turned his cattle out of the stalk field and gave them all the 
salt they would eat, mixed with copperas and sulphur. As soon as the 
bowels were moved the symptoms disappeared. Mr. Hull also gave the 
cattle asafcetida by ‘ driving it into the cob of the corn.” 

Personal inquiries among gentlemen from different parts of the United 
States, in Washington, enabled me to trace the malady to Western Vir- 
ginia, Illinois, and the Carolinas. It is much to be regretted that 
accurate information as to the extent of losses, and the localities 
affected, cannot be secured. 

There are other circumstances under which cattle die from eating 
corn. The stalks, very late in the season, are apt to get very hard and 
indigestible, and without a free admixture of grass, which the early 
frosts kill, and the other food, they produce severe indigestion and 
death. This is an observation that has freely been made in America, 
Moreover, cattle die sometimes if freely-fed on corn that has been badly 
stored, and is musty. The same results follow the use of other deteri- 
orated foods, and a brief reference to records on this subject may be 
found interesting and instructive. 

The facts published with regard to the prevalence of a malady from 
eating smutty corn, among cattle in America, are very few. If, how- 
ever, the real cause of many cases of so-called dry murrain had 


ILL EFFECTS OF SMUTTY CORN ON CATTLE. T 


been recorded correctly, there would be no difficulty in demonstrating 
that the condition of the cornfields has had much to do in developing 
this disorder. 

The Department of Agriculture has received information of the death 
of cattle from eating smut corn, in Hampshire County, Massachu- 
setts. Also from Whitley County, Indiana, where seven head of cattle, 
out of fifty, died, “‘ probably from smut in the corn field in which the 
herd ranged.” 

From Story County, Iowa, it is reported that last “‘ November a dis- 
ease appeared among herds recently turned into corn-stalk fields. The 
disease is evidently the dry murrain. <A post-mortem examination 
showed the mucous membrane of the stomach to be highly inflamed, 
with symptoms of poison. It is evident that the disease is generated 
in the stalk fields, and probable that it is produced by gorging the 
stomach when first turned into the stalks, after being confined on the 
wild frost-bitten prairie grass, and lack of sufficient water.” A few 
cattle died of dry murrain in Audubon County, in the same State, 
‘““supposed by some to be caused by smut in corn-stalks.” <A few 
head were lost from the same cause in Calhoun County, and many are 
reported to have died in Marshall County. We are, however, informed 
from Sac County that many cattle died in December—cause unknown; 
some supposed from eating smut corn, but that has been disproved. 
It is to be regretted that more is not stated with regard to the reasons 
which led persons to doubt the effects of the smutty corn. Even in 
New-York State little credence was given to the action of smutty corn 
at first; but careful inquiry proved that after all it was the cause of 
the dry murrain of the fall of 1868. From Dakota County, Nebraska, 
we learn of dry murrain from eating smut corn; whereas from Shawnee 
County it is reported, and no doubt correctly, that the same disease has 
been noticed among cattle ‘‘ fed on prairie hay, cut after frost.” 

In Scotland the clovers are apt to induce a similar condition at times, 
and the malady is then called ‘‘ grass disease.” It is not a specific affec- 
tion, and arises from a dryness and indigestibility of one kind of food, 
animals being debarred by circumstances from a salutary admixture of 
different kinds of feed. 

The cultivation of maize or Indian cornis already ancient in America; 
and the introduction of this important grain into Spain, and as far back 
as 1560 into Italy, should have resulted in the knowledge of its effects 
on man and animals, under the many conditions under which it is found. 
And, indeed, we are not without some knowledge of the subject, though 
it is to be regretted that accurate information cannot be gleaned from 
the writings of many who have referred to it. Both in its effects on 
men and animals, it appears to me that the consumption of Indian corn 
has to be studied in those parts where at times, and even to the present 
day, it constitutes the main article of diet, and in those where it is used 
at all times with other kinds of food. 


80 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Among men in America, from time immemorial, its use could be 
diversified with game, whereas in some parts of Italy, remarkable for the 
prevalence of pellagra among their inhabitants, people often live exelu- 
sively on corn bread, or the corn pudding they call polenta. The 
excess of starchy constituents, and scantiness of nitrogenous materials 
in comparison with other grains out of which flour and bread are man- 
ufactured, have been considered the causes of a cachectic and ill-nour- 
ished condition said to prevail wherever maize is the staple article of 
diet among a people. 

Mazzari,* Nardi,t and Letti, have ascribed the pellagra of Italy, and 
which I witnessed some years ago in a bad form in the hospital of Fer- 
rara, as due to diseased or smutty corn. 

The extensive cultivation of maize in Italy dates from the eighteenth 
century, and it is recorded by the celebrated Monati, and others, that 
before that period pellagra was unknown. SBalardini experimented with 
a view to demonstrate that the smut on corn was poisonous, and he 
records deleterious effects on fowls and even dogs. 

Although this does not exactly correspond with one result I have 
obtained, and recorded below, it is most desirable that experiments 
should be continued on the subject. Balardini confirms the observation 
of Vallénzasea della Falcadina, that the pellagra recorded by Odoardi 
as prevailing in the Alps of Bellano, in 1776, completely disappeared on 
the introduction of the potato as the basis of the food of the poor. 

M. Signad, in his Diseases of Brazil, attributes the chlorosis or inter- 
tropical hypacemia among the black slaves and the inhabitants on the 
western side of the Sierra dos Organos, to the exclusive use of Indian 
corn. 

The symptoms recorded by Jubins are, pallor of the face and body, 
yellowish, somewhat transparent, and sometimes greenish color of the 
skin. The blacks that become affected lose their color. 

M. Roodin records, in the fifth volume of the Journal de Chemie Med- 
icale, some observations on what he calls ergot of maize, but which 
Heusinger believes is the ordinary charbon, or smut. Roulin saw this 
diseased grain in the southern parts of Columbia, where it is called maize 
peladero. Its use causes people to lose their hair, and this is very 
remarkable in a country where baldheadedness is almost unknown, even 
among old people. 

Sometimes it causes looseness, and the loss of teeth, but never gan- 
grene of the limbs, nor convulsive maladies. Pigs at first dislike this 
diseased corn, but soon acquire a taste for it; and after eating it fora 
few days, their bristles drop out, and later on there is an awkwardness 
in the movements of their hind legs, and atrophy affects them. Eating 
the pigs induces no ill effects on man. Mules eat the maize peladero, 
lose their hair, and suffer from engorgements of the limbs; they are 


*Saggio medico politico sulla pellagra, Milano, 1836. 
+t Cause cura della pellagra, Milano, 1336. 


__ ee 


ILL EFFECTS OF SMUTTY CORN ON CATTLE. 81 


tied in distant pastures, and with the change ‘of diet some recover. 
Hens fed on the material lay eggs without shells. In the corn-fields 
where the disease prevails it is not uncommon to see monkeys and par- 
rots fall, and unable to rise again. The indigenous dogs and deer that 
enter the corn-fields at night suffer in the same way. 

It is asserted that across the Paramos, in the colder parts of Colum- 
bia, these accidents are not seen; and Dr. Roulin has indeed only wit- 
nessed them in the provinces of Neyba and Mariquita. 

Dulong* has analyzed corn smut, and although his analysis cannot at 
the present day be considered satisfactory, it is the only one on record. 
He found it to contain a material similar to fungine, a material allied 
to osmazone, a nitrogenous substance, a fatty matter, a waxy matter, 
acids, a brown coloring matter, a free organic acid, and combinations of 
this acid with magnesia and potash; lastly, he found phosphate, muri- 
ate, and sulphate of potash, subphosphate of lime, sal ammoniac, and 
oxide of iron; it contained no starch. . 

Anxious to try some experiments on the actions of pure smut on cattle, 
1 employed a negro in January, 1869, to go into the country and col- 
lect me a large quantity of pure smut. 

It was rather late, and the rains had washed most of it off the still 
standing stalks; but I obtained forty-two pounds of excellent smut, free 
from adventitious matters. On the 26th day of February, Mr. George 
Reid, of Ingleside farm, near Washington, D. C., purchased two cows, in 
good health, and aged respectively about seven years. One cow was fed 
thrice daily one and one-half pound of corn-meal and three ounces of 
smut, mixed with as much cut hay as she would eat. The second had 
the same allowance, but wetted. 

On the 7th of March the amount of smut given in each feed was 
increased to six ounces. The cow fed on dry food lost flesh. On the 
15th of March the dose of smut was increased to twelve ounces three 
times a day. The cow on the wetted food gained in condition. The 
other one lost. In three weeks the two cows consumed the forty-two 
pounds of smut; they had a voracious appetite the whole time, and the 
only indication of a peculiar diet was a very black color of the excre- 
ment, and the animal losing rather than gaining flesh, although fed 
liberally on nutritious diet, though in a dry condition. 

On the 12th of March the temperature of both cows was tested; and 
found 102°.2 and 102°.4 Fahr. 

No conclusions of importance can be drawn from a single experiment; 
but it is evident that smut is not a very active poison in combination 
with wholesome food, and especially if the animal is allowed moist food 
and plenty of water to drink. Cattle will eat the smut greedily, and 
possibly a morbid taste for it is acquired, as has been observed in pigs. 
It is evident that cornstalks, when starch and other nutritive elements 


* Journal de Pharmacie, vol. xiv. 


82 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


have gone to build up the large quantities of smut investing them, are 
essentially dry, indigestible material for any animal to live on, and 
especially when excluded from other food. That is quite sufficient to 
account for the development of dry murrain that commonly attacks 
cattle in the United States, and was more frequent than usual last 
winter. 

, Diversifying and multiplying experiments on this question will undoubt- 
edly result in some interesting information, and I am quite confident 
that it will be fully demonstrated that smutty corn cannot be safely, and 
certainly cannot economically be used as a food for cattle, and should 
not be allowed them without a great admixture of hay and other nutri. 
tious food. The more water and succulent food cattle are allowed while 
eating cornstalks, the less liable they will be to a deadly constipation 
and gastric impaction. Numerous and even angry discussions have in 
times past been carried on in different parts of Europe in relation to 
the action of moldy, musty, or otherwise damaged fodder on the lower 
animals, and a few observations on the results of feeding horses, &c., 
on hay and grain tainted by fungi may be regarded as of importance 
here, if only as a means of comparison. 

The evident tendency is to derange the alimentary canal in the first 
place, then disturb the process of nutrition or assimilation, and lastly 
to excite the emunctories for the discharge of noxious principles, and 
more particularly inducing an excessive secretion of urine, or diarrhea. 


MUSTY HAY. 


It has frequently been observed that the imperfect making of hay, 
especially during wet seasons, is followed by serious derangements 
among horses, mules, and other animals, which suffer from severe indi- 
gestion, impaction of the stomach accompanied by vertigo, or the pro- 
fuse discharge of clear-colored urine, with an intolerable thirst, emacia- 
tion, weakness, and death. It is said that the Hungarian, hay, in 
different parts of America, and especially in parts of Kentucky, Mis- 
souri, and Kansas, is apt to cause considerable losses, if cut after full 
inflorescence and late in the season. I have been told by Kansas farmers 
that great attention has to be paid to a sufficiently early hay-making in 
order to avoid accidents. 

Tn 1855 I witnessed in Lyons, France, a large amount of disease and 
many deaths among horses, from the great abundance of musty hay, 
gathered during an unusually wet season. Scarcely a day passed but 
one or more cart horses were literally dragged to the veterinary college, 
They moved along with hanging head, sunken eye, depended lip, and 
tottering gait, suffering from pains in the abdomen, and considerable 
tympanitis; partial sweats bedewed the body, the visible mucous mem- 
branes were of an intensely yellow color, and the urine dark. On reach- 
ing a loose box, the patients were tied to a center post, which turned as 
they moved round, and prevented them from dashing their heads against 


ILL EFFECTS OF SMUTTY CORN ON CATTLE. 83 


the wall. The muscles twitched, the horses writhed in pain, and dashed 
about in fits of delirium. Two hundred and forty-nine cases of this 
kind were admitted into the infirmary from August, 1854, to August, 
1855. The disease raged almost as an epizodtic from the month of Sep- 
tember, 1854; and not only in the neighborhood of Lyons, but in many 
departments of France. 

In the month of November, 1856, I was requested to see a Clydesdale 
stallion, near Kirkealdy, in Fife. This horse had, as is very usual on 
Scotch farms, been turned into a large shed, and allowed as much hay as 
he would eat, and a couple of feeds of oats. On moving the animal out 
of the stable, he nearly fell, and had evidently lost much of his natural 
control over the movements of his hinder limbs. It was no new form of 
disease, but one of those singular forms of hemiplegia so commonly 
observed in herbivorous animals, as the result of improper feeding and 
acuteindigestion. Theowner thought the animal had seriously injured his 
spine. A cathartic dose of aloes, the discontinuance in the use of hay 
which was musty, and a few doses of tonic medicine, restored the horse. 
From that time I was consulted frequently, and in different parts, 
especially around Edinburgh and on the border counties of Scotland, 
regarding this disease. A large number of animals died, from ignorance 
of the nature and treatment of the disease, which disappeared with the 
close of a season during which the bad crop of hay was being consumed. 
These observations are recorded as mere instances of frequently recurring 
accidents, resulting from the feeding of horses on musty hay. 


MUSTY OATS. 


Among the numerous sources of inconvenience and loss to owners 
of horses in Europe and America, few are more troublesome than the 
results of feeding on musty oats. I have known a large establishment, 
with near five hundred horses, whose entire stock was simultaneously 
affected. Attention was first directed to the unusual wetness of the 
litter in the morning, and a great craving for water. The animals were 
weak, dull in harness, and hollow-flanked. The wasting of tissues pro- 
gressed rapidly ; and in all that had any considerable exertion to undergo, 
the unthrifty look of their skin, well defined muscles from wasting of 
the fat around them, and the leanness of the upper part of the neck, 
where the great ligament suspending the head could be felt, like a rigid 
cord, constituted very decided and alarming symptoms. Persistence in 
work resulted in a form of albuminuria; sometimes diarrhea was readily 
induced, and a purgative would so contribute to increase the weakness 
and prostration that the animal would die or fall in a state of hectic. 
All this disturbance in the functions of nutrition, assimilation, and 
secretion ceased on changing the diet, administering astringents or 
drachm doses of iodide of potassium for a few days, and following up 


‘with a course of sulphate of iron, as a tonic, in very moderate quantities, 


not exceeding half a drachm or a drachm to a horse per day. 


84 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Several epizoitie attacks have been attributed to rust or mildew in 
plants. Fromment looked upon it as causing great loss among sheep in 
Franconia, during the years 1663, 64, and 65. Rammazinni, professor 
of medicine, at Padua, speaks of a contagious malady affecting men, 
cattle, and even the silk worm, which broke out in 1690. The four or 
five preceding years had been very hot, and during 1689 and 1690, much 
rain having fallen, the country was inundated, the grasses, fruits, and 
leguminous plants became affected with rust. Plagues which raged 
among animals in Hesse in 1693, in Hungary in 1712, and in Saxony in 
1746, occurred with, and as a result of, mildew affecting vegetables. 
Gerlach asserts that this will produce abortion and inflammation of the’ 
womb in ewes. Numan, Masseband, and Niemann have also written on 
the noxious properties of plants affected with rust. 


RUSTY STRAW. 


In 1804 Gohier, afterwards director of the Lyons veterinary college, 
but then veterinary surgeon to the 20th light dragoons, published an 
interesting monograph entitled ‘Des effects des pailles rouillés.”. The 
depot of Gohier’s regiment arrived at Arras on the 7th of June, with 
about two hundred horses. For a month they continued healthy, being 
supplied with good forage ; some of the straw, however, was rusty. The 
whole regiment arrived and the straw supplied was worse; several horses 
fell ill, being mainly attacked by violent colic. In three days fourteen 
were altected with the disease; but with the exception of two old horses 
that were ill for three days, the disease was only of a few hours dura- 
tion. The horses that partook most freely of the rusty straw were most 
seriously affected. In seven days thirty had suffered, and MM. Gohier 
and Masigny drew up a report condemning the forage. Their opinion 
was rejected by veterinary surgeons and others called upon to inquire 
into the matter, and the whole evil was attributed to some water of 
which, however, the horses had always drunk while enjoying perfect 
health. After considerable annoyance and litigation it was recog- 
nized that the rusty straw and even bad hay had given rise to,much 
disease and death among the horses of the regiment. During eight 
months, out of seven hundred horses, there were constantly from forty- 
five to fifty in the infirmary, and in the month of November as many as 
sixty-two. The deaths were by those diseases which always prevail 
when animals are badly nourished, namely: stomach staggers, colic, 
marasmus, glanders, farcy, skin diseases, catarrhal affections, and cede- 
matous swellings. Those horses subject to cedema were very subject 
to gangrene, and if setons were applied, or a farey-bud cauterized by fire, 
mortification of the wounded parts supervened, and the animals died in a 
few hours. Gohier says that not only the rusty straw but likewise the 
bad hay was the cause of such serious loss among the horses of his regi- 
ment. Gohier instituted several experiments to prove that the diseased 
straw was injurious, and not only was he successful with the straw, but 


ILL EFFECTS OF SMUTTY CORN ON CATTLE. 85 


a decoction of the same induced loss of appetite, a thin and sickly 
aspect, and altogether evidence that the animals had been poisoned. 


MOLDY BREAD. 


Flour is attacked by a very noxious red or orange-colored mold, 
(Penicillium roseum) and a less poisonous greenish-blue mold, (Penicillium 
glaucum). Bread made from flour which has been kept in a damp place, 
or that which is the produce of wheat grown and harvested during 
unfavorable weather, becomes moldy and may become very deleterious. 
' Accidents have happened where horses have been fed on such bread, 
and I may mention that it is not uncommon at times and in some coun- 
tries for horses to be fed partly on bread. Eating moldy bread has 
been said to induce gastro-enteritis in horses, and Professor Fuchs saw 
two cases of stomach staggers induced by it, which were relieved by 
purgatives. 

SYMPTOMS OF THE ILL EFFECTS OF SMUTTY CORN. 


Cattle fed on smutty corn stalks first denote ill health by constipa- 
tion. It is true that a farmer may be only attracted by an animal lying 
down, with an unthrifty-looking, stary coat, dry muzzle, and perhaps 
trembling; or a steer maybe noticed “tucked up,” with hind limbs 
drawn under it, head depressed, shivering, dullness of eyes, and anx- 
ious expression of countenance. In a third variety the animal seems 
excited, breathes quickly, and is apparently somewhat delirious, indeed, 
in the conditions described by Mr. Cumming of Ellen, Aberdeenshire, as 
resulting from impactions of the third stomach, as in cases of lead poison- 
ing. Nothing is more strange than this delirium, associated as it is 
sometimes with blindness. A farmer writing me from the west says 
that when he tried to put a rope around the head of a sick cow, which 
he found standing with all the symptoms of sickness presented by other 
animals of the herd which had been with her in the corn field, she turned 
to fight and fought furiously. I have seen an animal in this conditoni 
tied up in a Stall, rush forward, fall on her knees, and then extending 
herself on her side, suffer from a convulsive fit. Or in other cases, when 
attempts are made to lead such an animal about, it runs forward, 
plunges, strikes against any obstacle, roars, moans, grunts in breathing, 
and appears to suffer acutely if touched or disturbed. In other words, 
with the impactions of the third stomach, which is the essential lesion 
of the disease, whether induced by smutty stalks, old indigestible stalks 
that have no smut, or other kind of food or poison, there are two dis- 
tinct conditions induced. The one of stupor, listlessness, vertigo, 
depression of spirits ; and these are indicated by animals standing sul- 
lenly until they drop or are relieved. The second is a state of exquisite 
sensitiveness, hypereesthesia of the skin and system generally. The 
animals are not only excited but in a state of actual suffering, and die 
very speedily in a state of coma or in convulsions. The disease does 


86 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


not last long. I have seen an animal linger on four or five days, but 
usually the whole course of the malady is run in from twenty-four to 
forty-eight hours. 

An animal first seems to show costiveness, with a dry mucus over 
the scanty excrement; although apparently undisturbed and even feeding, 
may be dead in from twelve to twenty-four hours. 

The diagnosis of the disease at an early period of its manifestations is 
therefore important, and it rests on the knowledge of how animals have 
been treated and fed, (as the simultaneous attack of several animals 
show,) and especially on the observations of a fact that I have usually | 
traced, that the animals which have eaten most ravenously have been 
the first and most severely affected. Old cattle may sometimes avoid 
the smutty food, and young animals eat heartily; these will be found 
the first and only ones to die. 


POST-MORTEM APPEARANCES. 


The state of torpor of the alimentary canal of animals affected with 
this disease is indicated on opening the belly and exposing the stomach 
to view. In the first, or paunch, corn husks and corn are found in a dry 
condition. Sometimes the rumen is very full, and gas may have become 
disengaged in it so as to cause a great distension, which is relieved by 
puncture. The contents of the second stomach, or reticulum, are in tha 
same condition as those of the first, though sometimes mixed with some 
fluid. The third stomach, manyplies or omasum, is firm, distended, and 
on being opened the food is found caked between the folds, with marked 
impressions of the papille or little eminences which stud the mucous 
membrane. We find in almost all fevers a similar condition of the third 
stomach, and indeed in healthy animals it is that part of the digestive 
organs in which the food is most dry and packed preparatory for solu- 
tion by the gastric juice and intestinal secretions. But there are other 
lesions associated with this “caking” of the food in the third stomach, 
in specific diseases, and its existence without these affords evidence of a 
primary form of impaction, which has received the most remarkable 
names, such as “ staking,” “bound,” ‘ fardel-bound,” &e. The fourth 
stomach contains but a scanty quantity of greenish, semi-digested mat- 
ter, is usually reddened somewhat diffusely, and the redness increases 
at times toward the opening of the small intestines. 

The intestine, usually replete with somewhat solid and imperfectly 
digested food, is usually high colored, especially in the fundus of the 
excum, and in the large portion of the colon. The rectum is the seat 
of ramified redness, and a consistent mucus coats its contents. 

Persons have reported a peculiar black color of one lung. This is 
only due to stagnation of blood after death, in the organ nearest the 
ground; and the same kind of stasis or settling of the blood is apt to 
pervade other tissues and organs in the side on which an animal has 
been lying. 


ILL EFFECTS OF SMUTTY CORN ON CATTLE. 87 


TREATMENT. 


I have found the accidents resulting from the feeding of smutty corn 
to cattle very amenable to treatment. Almost all the animals die unless 
relieved, but it is not difficult to treat them very successfully. At first 
a purgative must be administered; such as a pound or a pound and a 
half of Epsom salts, or Glauber’s salts alone, or combined with aloes, 
sulphur, ginger. The following is a desirable purging drink: 


Pmbpiitue OF MAoNeSia.. 5. ..-.--b rss. kee. ese cess yoo. ok OUT. 
ROMNEY AIOES fon kre ea) oars isa a nce oe eee eis act ao 4 drachms. 
POET CU! PEWS Ce clarin wed e's Sarscnck lee Selo sicis we iin ee 2 drachms. 
Oy Gil SI appt tee eee: 3 capes wales Mites tak ocsiuaee oso. sae Rebel SSeiiely aah 1 quart. 


This to be given in warm linseed tea, oat-meal, gruel or pure water. 
A pound or two of treacle with eight drachms of aloes or with a pint of 
linseed or sweet oil may be used when the salts are not at hand. Cattle 
should be induced to drink either plain water or linseed tea. Common 
salt will create thirst, and for this purpose may be given in such quan- 
tities as will not make the liquid too salt to be palatable. Warm water 
injections are of the highest importance, and for this purpose the enema 
funnel,* which can be made by any tinsmith at a charge of about fifty 
cents, is the best instrument yet devised. About a quart or two of 
lukewarm water, without any addition but a little sweet oil to lubricate 
the tube of the instrument, may be poured into the rectum every half 
hour. On the second, day it may be found that the medicine does not 
act very freely. The best agent to be given then is carbonate of ammo- 
nia in half-drachm doses, twice a day, largely diluted with linseed tea 
or gruel. Care must be taken in giving this medicine not to excoriate 
the mouth. As soon as the appetite returns, a succulent diet, such as 
grass, boiled turnips, charbeters, sweet hay, &c., completes the animal’s 
restoration. 


PREVENTION. 


It is evident that all such accidents as these I have described may be 
completely prevented by not allowing cattle to eat indigestible corn- 
stalks, whether their indigestibility arises from age, dryness, or smut. 
Mixed with an abundance of soft food such material may do no harm, 
and indeed has constantly been used with impunity; but lossesare very 
severe if cattle are compelled either to starve or to eat what may well 
be compared to broomsticks. 

The farmer who annually loses a large amount of the produce of lands 
tilled at great cost and trouble, should reflect that smut on corn is only 
evidence of bad farming, and, apart from the fact of danger to lives of 


* This is an ordinary tin funnel, capable of holding one quart, with the pipe bent at 
right angles, about ten inches long from the bend, with the extremity rounded by a 
mass of soft solder to prevent the rectum being injured by the insertion of the sharp 
edges of the pipe. The contents flow into the intestine by gravitation. 


88 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


the animals on the farm, it is most desirable to extirpate the pest. That 
its extirpation is possible few will doubt who know, in relation to other 
parasitic plants, such as the rust in wheat, how effectually the seed 
may be purified and a healthy plant obtained in a well-prepared soil. 
Having fresh land to break up or old to plow again, the farmer should 
plow deeply and turn over the soil effectually. He should obtain -his 
seed from a district or farm that is high, dry, well cultivated, and free 
from smut. Inasmuch, however, as the spores of ustilago maidis are 
minute and in the form of impalpable powder, thousands may be dis- 
persed in a sample of corn and grow with the plant. To avoid this, 
dipping the grain in a solution of copperas may be found of great service. 
The copperas, in the proportion of one pound to the four bushels of corn, 
is to be dissolved in a little warm water, then cold added to make about 
a stable pailfull, and with this the corn is simply washed, not soaked. 
Soaking makes the grain swell and interferes with sowing in machines. 
The corn is sown as soon as damped with the solution. 


THE SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 


BY JOHN GAMGEE, M. D. 


The transportation of northern cattle into Florida, Texas, parts of 
Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina, and the traveling of southern 
herds across the grazing lands of States northward, result in the sick- 
ness and death of the animals which come within the range of a singular 
form of contamination. In Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Virginia, Ken- 
tucky, Carolina, and Georgia, the so-called Spanish or Ted ieee has 
been the cause of losses prior to and since the war, and more especially 
during last summer, which have excited the most virulent opposition 
among the stock-raisers of those States to the driving of Texan steers 
across the prairies. The nature of this feeling is indicated by a letter 
from Mr. 8. Morgan Welch, of Waverly, Missouri, who, in a letter to 
the Prairie Farmer of the 26th of September, 1868, says: “Talk to a 
Missourian about moderation, when a drove of Texas cattle is coming 
and he will call yot a fool, while he coolly loads his gun, and joins ine 
neighbors; and they intend no scare, either. They mean to kill, and 
will and do kill, and keep killing eal the drove takes the back track; 
and the cme must be careful not to get between their cattle and the 
citizens, either, unless they are bullet-proof. No doubt thislooks a good 
deal like border-ruffianism to you, but it is the way we keep clear of the 
Texas fever; and, my word for it, Illinois will have to do the same thing 
yet. 

“Congress ought to do something in regard to this stock. Very 
stringent laws were passed in regard to the rinderpest, and yet it is 
scareely more fatal than Texas fever, only the latter is not contagious 
among our native cattle. Texas stock should not be allowed to cross the 
35th parallel of north latitude alive.” 

With rare exceptions the States of Illinois and Indiana have not been 
visited with splenic fever prior to 1868, and the great reason for this is, 
that southern stock has been slaughtered in the west by butchers and 
packers in the winter months, and have not been purchased in large 
quantities by cattle dealers and graziers, to fatten on the western 
prairies. But steers in Texas can be had in their prime for eight and 
ten dollars in gold. It has been recently computed that there are five 
million head in that State alone, and that the net yearly increase, after 
allowing a discount of twenty-five per cent. of loss by disease and casu- 
alties, amounts to seven hundred and fifty thousand head. 

It is impossible to exaggerate the sufferings Texan cattle endure in 


90 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


being transported by steamers from the Texan coast to New Orleans 
and thence to eastern or to western cities; and it is, likewise, difficult to 
draw too vivid a picture of the perils and anxieties of a drover’s life. 
Energetic frontiersmen in small bands, armed to their teeth, collect a 
herd of cattle, varying from two to twelve hundred, and then drive at 
the rate of eight or ten miles a day, through unsettled lands, a distance 
of from six to nine hundred miles; always watching lest their cattle 
and horses be stampeded, or their own scalps taken by wild Indians. 
Storms and herds of buffaloes are minor causes tending to scatter the 
drover’s property; but it is not uncommon for a heavy percentage of 
amimals to be lost from one or all the foregoing causes combined. 

Notwithstanding the waste in flesh and lives among stock on the 
New Orleans route, and the hardships to be endured by drovers in the 
southwest, the prices realized by Texan steers, when reaching the great 
markets of America, prove, in many instances, highly remunerative. 

The scarcity of cattle in the west, especially since the war, the tempt- 
ing prospects of utilizing Finusan ds and tens of thousands of open and 
unreclaimed prairie lands, the constitutional soundness of Texas cattle, 
which enables them individually to withstand influences which are 
destructive to other stock, are all causes which tend to favor the invest- 
ment of western capital in such stock. 

The current has been too strong for ordinary State legislation; and 

early, during the past spring, a strong tide set in, which brought large 
herds into the west, through New Orleans and Cairo, or via Abilene to 
St. Louis, Quincy, useage: Cincinnati, and many grazing farms between 
those points. 

The people of Illinois were warned by Mr. D. C. Emerson, of Vanda- 
lia, in a letter to the Chicago Tribune, of the 26th of May. Cireum- 
stances have tended to give a historical worth to that brief communica- 
tion. Mr. Emerson said: “ Having been a constant reader of your val- 
uable paper for many years, and wishing to promote the general good 
and prosperity of our great and growing State, I would call the atten- 
tion of farmers and cattle-growers to the following facts: 

“ While at Centralia, yesterday, I saw a very long train of stock cars 
filled with Texan and with Indiana oxen on their way to Iroquois County; 
there to be fattened on the rich prairies; and I learned that there were 
in the lot fourteen hundred head of old, worn-out oxen, bringing the 
Spanish fever with them. A writer in the Missouri Democrat has de 
scribed this disease as contagious, and says that it causes the destruction 
of our home cattle, wherever these Texas cattle are taken.” 

I arrived in Chicago on the 1st of June, the day on which Mr. Emer- 
son’s letter was published, and wrote to the Chicago Tribune, communi- 
cating information which had been furnished me by General Horace 
Capron, and which indicated that, while trustworthy and appalling 
reports of the Spanish fever had been furnished by the people of Kan- 
sas, Missouri, Kentucky, and even Ilinois, the Texas people were indig- 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 91 


nant at the imputations cast on their herds, just as the Russians were 
when we attributed the rinderpest to importations from their country. 

Although the subject of meat preservation had brought me to Amer- 
ica, it was only because I had for years striven, and, to a certain extent, 
striven in vain, to secure rational regulations of the cattle traffic for the 
prevention of contagious diseases in my own country; and it was a mat- 
ter of deep interest to me to find that similar dangers threatened the 
stock owners of the west. 

The abundant influx into linois of Gulf Coast cattle soon brought 
notices of the ravages by disease at Cairo and elsewhere; but none were 
heeded, until it was reported on the 27th of July that Mr. E. Richard- 
son, of Farina, had written to Governor Oglesby in regard to the numer- 
ous deaths among the cattle of the inhabitants of his district, and that 
eight to ten a day were dying. Mr. John L. Hancock, of the firm of 
Messrs. Cragin & Co., Chicago, at once induced the Pork Packers’ Asso- 
ciation to appoint a commission, consisting of Mr. W. E. Richardson, 
Dr. Blaney, and myself, to visit the localities where the disease had 
appeared, and report on the matter. 

We accordingly started on the evening of the 29th of July, and pros- 
ecuted inquiries at Tolono, Farina, and Cairo, returning to Chicago on 
the 4th of August. On the 5th I was requested to continue my investi- 
. gations for the Department of Agriculture, and, with the Commission- 
er’s consent, had the advantage of continued, earnest co-operation on 
the part of Mr. W. E. Richardson and Mr, H. D. Emery, editors of the 
Prairie Farmer. Both these gentlemen brought to bear a knowledge of 
the country, and the cattle trade, which materially aided me in my inqui- 
ries, and they have favored me with their advice and assistance, up to 
the completion of the present report. 

In accordance with the instructions received, I aimed at determining 
the following points: 

1. The extent and nature of the Texan cattle traffic, and the state of 
health of the Texan cattle. 

2. The circumstances under which these animals communicate disease 
to the stock of the west, and other parts north of the Gulf States. 

3. The history of the Texan fever, as it spreads over the States. 

4, The symptoms, post-mortem appearances, and nature of the so- 
called Spanish or Texan fever. 

5. The means to be adopted for the prevention of the disease, and the 
cure of the sick animals. 

My investigations have extended over the States of Illinois, Indiana, 
Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, and these enable me to speak 
very positively as to the nature of the disease, and the means which 
must be adopted to prevent it. 

In the present report it is my intention to restrict myself to the 
annexed heads: 

1. Definitions of the disease. 


7 


92 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


2. Symptoms. . 

3. Post-mortem appearances. 

4. Causes and nature of the disease. 
5. Curative treatment. 

6. Prevention. 


DEFINITION. 


The splenic or periodic fever, commonly known as Texas fever, Span- 
ish fever, or cattle fever, and which has been observed wherever and 
whenever cattle from the States or the Gulf of Mexico have been driven 
north during the summer months, is a disease peculiar to the oxs tribe, 
which has never been described as attacking the southern cattle, and 
which occurs, in a moreor less latent form,among them. Its distinguish- 
ing features have been most marked in the cattle of Georgia, Tennessee, 
Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, [linois, and Indiana, wherever 
these have grazed on pastures previously or simultaneously occupied by 
herds from Texas and Florida. It is, so far as we have yet ascertained, 
incapable of communication by simple contact of sick and of healthy 
animals ; and, in the strict sense of the terms, is neither contagious nor 
infectious. It is an enzootic disorder, probably due to the food on which 
southern cattle subsist, whereby the systems of these animals become 
charged with deleterious principles, that are afterwards propagated and 
dispersed by the excreta of apparently healthy, as well as obviously sick, 
stock. Itis not one of the epizobties proper, and in its origin and distribu- 
tion differs from the plagues due to specific animal poisons which are 
common in various parts of the Old World and the New. The malady is 
probably incapable of communication by inoculation, and the flesh, blood, 
and secretions of such cattle have been handled and consumed by human 
beings without the manifestation of untoward results. 

In Texas, cattle of all ages, from the time they begin to graze, are 
afflicted with the malady in a somewhat latent and mild form. Early in 
the year many animals die, especially when the wet deteriorates the 
grasses; and the mortality, of which any one can gain evidence in crossing 
Texan prairies and seeing the carcasses, is ascribed to poverty. It is, 
however, a feature everywhere that cattle donot attain the same weight 
in the south, even on the best grasses, that they do in northern latitudes; 
and this is, no doubt, accounted for by the uniform signs of irritation, 
and even erosions of the stomach. enlarged spleen, fatty liver, and some- 
times ecchymosis in the kidneys. 

The disease in its acute form is characterized during life by a long and 
variable period of incubation, which is most commonly of five or six 
weeks’ duration. The temperature of the body then rises, the secretions 
are checked, and indications of depression and fesciussaed are afforded 
by drooping head, depressed ears, arched back, approximation of limbs, 
and indisposition to move, or to rise when down. ‘The fieces, usually dry, 
are sometimes blood-stained ; and the urine almost invariably becomes 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 93 


of a dark, port-wine color, is retained for hours, and then evacuated in 
inconsiderable quantities. Frequent pulse, hurried breathing, and tre- 
mors are almost invariable symptoms; and, according to the severity of 
the attack, there is more or less paralysis, which either partially affects 
the hind quarters, or equally involves the fore. From implication of the 
lesser brain there is occasionally a defective co-ordination of movement ; 
and, when the brain proper is involved, the animal either lies comatose, 
or is delirious. 

In the first case there is more or less blindness, and in the second a 
wild, staring gaze, and the greatest restlessness. Animals recover, espe- 
cially if from the south; but the communicated disorder among northern’ 
stock is extremely fatal; and, in many forms, destroys every animal 
exposed to its ravages. Death usually occurs about the third or the 
fourth day from the time the animal is very obviously sick; but probably 
not for ten or twelve days from the first indications to be obtained by 
the thermometer. The symptoms of approaching death are usually great 
prostration, the animals lying and refusing to rise, retention of the urine, 
the head occasionally drawn forcibly round, especially to the right side, 
and the muscles of the neck twitching without much intermission. After 
death there is marked cadaveric rigidity ; the skin and Subcutaneous 
tissues are usually sound ; but effusions of serum, and sometimes of blood, 
have been witnessed under the lower jaw and sternum. The respiratory 
organs are commonly healthy, but in some cases the lungs are somewhat 
ecchymosed, and more frequently there is partial interlobular emphysema. 
The heart is frequently blood-stained both on the inner and the outer 
aspects. The peritoneum is sometimes ecchymosed, and, in one instance, 
was found to contain a large amount of free, coagulated blood. The 
digestive organs, from the mouth to the fourth stomach, are, as a rule, 
healthy. The fourth stomach, or abomasum, is, with rare exceptions, 
the seat of distinct lesions, viz., dark redness, eechymosis, yellow gran- 
ular-looking eruptions, and erosions of the cardiac end; and the pyloric 
end is of more normal color, but frequently the seat of extensive super- 
ficial erosions, penetrating the substance of the mucous membrane, to 
which, wherever an abrasion exists, food usually adheres. The small 
intestine is generally the seat of punctiform or ramified redness through- 
out its whole extent; and blood extravasations are common in the 
cecum, colon, and rectum. The liver is often congested, and the gall- 
bladder distended with viscid bile. The spleen is twice, three, or even 
five times its natural size; and, according to the duration and severity 
of the attack, is more or less broken up and disintegrated in its inter- 
nal structure. In one case the spleen had given away at its base, and 
hemorrhage had taken place into the peritoneum. The kidneys and supra- 
renal capsules are usually congested. The mucous membrane of the 
urethra, at its origin in the pelves of the renal lobules, is often the seat of 
extensive ecchymosis. The urinary bladder is usually very much dis- 
tended with bloody urine, which never coagulates spontaneously, and 


94 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


only under the action of heat and nitric acid. The constant and path- 
ognomonic lesion of this disease is the enlargement and even disintegra- 
tion of the spleen, with redness and erosion of the stomach. The blood 
is always more or less affected, anaemic, and the functions of nutrition 
disturbed. In its course in the south, it resembles the periodic fevers of 
man; is usually sub-acute in form, and varies in intensity at different 
times. 

The expression I have proposed to designate this disease is splenic 
fever of cattle, from the fact that the disease is readily distinguished, as 
a rule, by the enlargement of this organ, coupled, no doubt, with other 
lesions. It is an enzootic disease, allied and corresponding to the 
endemic periodic fevers of man, for which the southern States are re- 
markable; and it may be deemed prudent to use a more general expres- 
sion than splenic fever, viz., that of periodic fever of cattle. Splenic 
fever is readily prevented, in all cattle north of the Gulf States, by pro- 
tecting them, during the summer months, from the pastures and roads 
on which southern cattle have traveled and fed. The prevention of the 
disease in Texas would call for a further and more extended inquiry into 
all the local gauses in operation; but, generally speaking, the condition 
of soils and grasses might be altered by thorough cultivation, drainage, 
deep plowing, &c. In Texas I have found that feeding on corn tends to 
modify the conditions of cattle, and invigorate their constitutions; and 
much may be expected from the corn-feeding system rather recently in- 
troduced on a comprehensive scale. 

No specific means of cure have been discovered for the malady; and 
palliative measures consist in allowing animals which suffer from the 
acute form of the disease, abundant mucilaginous drinks, neutral salts, 
and occasional diffusible stimulants. Animals have recovered when left 
to nature, as indeed, also, when they have been profusely bled and purged. 


SYMPTOMS. 


Splenic or periodic fever evidently occurs in two forms, and its course 
may be subdivided into four stages. ; 

The first form is an insidious, latent, and usually more fatal one. 
There are few fevers that do not, at times, attack animals in such a way 
as to produce so little general disturbance as to prevent their recogni- 
tion in the living animal. Cases of this description occur in rinderpest. 
I have alluded to them in an official report on the lung plague, the con- 
tagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia of. Europe, and have witnessed them 
in outbreaks of small-pox in sheep; but in enzootic maladies, and espe- 
cially in the various forms of anthrax, it is not unfrequently found that 
animals from districts where such diseases arise indicate, after death, 
that the healthiest and strongest have suffered, or are suffering organic 
changes which a special systemic vigor or constitutional resistance hides 
so long as the animal is in life. 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 95 


Whether we study the malady as seen by me in Texas, or on Smoky 
Hill, in Kansas, where a sudden shock to the system of a steer, on the 
occasion of its being stampeded, developed symptoms and induced death ; 
or look to the other animals, apparently fresh and grazing, which indi- 
cated an abnormally high temperature of the body, it is evident that a 
large herd, traveling from the region whence splenic fever is propagated, 
carries not only the active cause of such propagation in the systems of 
animals composing it, but the evidence of specific disease induced, which 
remains for an indefinite time latent and unobserved. 

During the early part of our investigations, we could not fail to be 
toreibly struck by the apparently healthy condition of the vast herds of 
Texan steers which had scattered a most deadly poison on the pastures 
of Illinois and Indiana; and even our dissections failed, limited as they 
necessarily were, to elicit the truth. But the inspection of vast numbers 
of Texan cattle in Kansas, and in the Chicago slaughter-houses, have 
proved that appearances may be very deceptive; and I consider that 
the abnormal weights of the spleen of southern cattle, coupled, as such 
an indication is, with gastric redness and erosions, pale blood, and the 
not unfrequent presence of bloody urine in the bladder, demonstrate that 
splenic fever often, and indeed usually, occurs in a latent form among 
southern herds, which communicate the disease; and none but a trained 
expert, thermometer and scalpel in hand, can declare positively that any 
stock is in the enjoyment of perfect health. 

We are almost warranted in believing that the latent causes of splenic 
feyer are recognizable by the elevation of temperature; but this is a 
symptom of all fevers, and it is only by studying this condition in rela- 
tion to many other circumstances, such as the source whence stock is 
derived, the evidence of some unusual mortality, and the post-mortem 
indications of certain animals in a herd, concerning which there may be 
suspicions, that it is possible to determine the presence of splenic fever 
in its occult form. . 

The stages into which any case of splenic fever may be subdivided, 
but which are readily recognizable in well-developed instances of the 
disease, are: . 

I. The incubative stage. 

II. The stage of invasion. 

Ill. The congestive or bleeding stage. 

IV. Termination. 

I. The ineubative stage—The stage of incubation has not been satis- 
factorily determined in individual cases; that is to say, it has been im- 
possible, as yet, to obtain experimental facts which, as in the case of rin- 
derpest and variola ovina, enable us to state positively that, from the 
date of contamination of ar animal by the poison, so many days elapse 
before the manifestation of the disease, and that such period cannot be 
prolonged beyond a definite and ascertained limit; nevertheless there 
are important data which indicate that, from the period of arrival of a 


96 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Texan herd on any distant or on any defined pasture, from five to six 
weeks elapse before the disease appears in the indigenous stock, grazing 
with or after the southern cattle. It is proved that the animals may 
simply pass leisurely over a road or prairie, feeding as they move along, 
and, without remaining for any length of time on any portion of the 
ground they traverse, they leave behind them sufficient poison to de- 
stroy all or nearly all the cattle which continue to feed thereon. In such 
cases the disease usually takes more than a month to attain its full de- 
velopment. There are instances on record which seem to indicate that 
the incubative stage may be shorter, and we have met with others where 
it was reported that the disease appeared in a week from the date of 
importation of Texan stock; but as a rule, in such reports, the whole 
facts are not before us, and it is not safe to draw any conclusions from 
exceptional instances. For instance, in the monthly report of the Agri- 
cultural Department for April, 1867, it is reported from Osage County, 
Kansas, that about the 1st of August, 1866, the disease made its appear- 
ance at Burlingame: 

The first that occurred was that of an ox which belonged to a logging team of seven 
yoke. This ox, on account of his breachy propensities, was kept at night in a stable 
and watered from a well of pure water. When not at work in the day time he was 
staked out to grass, with a long rope. About two weeks before he was attacked with 
the disease, a herd of Texas cattle came along, and were stopped and fed around him 
for an hour or more. Soon after, the rest of this team were attacked, and all died but 
one, which escaped the disease. 

The reporter from Bates County, Missouri, says: 

The disease is never seen until from ten days to two weeks after the passing through 
the country of Spanish cattle. 

Texan cattle commenced to arrive at Cairo on the 23d of April, 1868, 
and the first case concerning which we could get reliable reports 
occurred on the Ist of June. At Tolono the largest body of Texan cat- 
tle arrived towards the end of May, and the disease broke out on the 
27th of July. One gentleman of Tolono gave accommodations one night 
to three hundred Texan steers, on the 25th of June, and the disease 
appeared among his stock on the 28th of July. At Farina two hundred 
and fifty Texan cattle were placed with fifty Illinois steers on the 10th 
of May, and the disease appeared among the latter on or about the 15th 
of July. Near Sodorus, a farmer had his cattle grazing on prairie over 
which Texan cattle passed on the 1st of June, and his stock com- 
menced to die on the 28th of July. In Champaign County Texan cattle 
were placed on the prairie on the 15th of June, and the indigenous 
stock began to die on the 3d of August, twenty out of thirty-eight head 
dying in four days, that is to say, by August 7, the date of my inspec- 
tion. 

Our experience agrees with the cases recorded, where dates are given 
with some care. Thus, in the Agricultural Report for 1867, the reporter 
from Oldham County, Kentucky, says: 


The 24th day of June, 1860, there were driven on my farm, to stay one night, some 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 97 


fifty head of Texas cattle. Some forty days after they left, about the 18th of August, 
the disease broke out among my milch cows and heifers, and work cattle. 

Thus we see that from thirty to forty days usually elapse from the 
placing of Texan stock on a pasture and the manifestation of disease to 
the stock owners of the neighborhood. 

The first indication which attracts special attention is usually the 
death of a cow or steer. It is evident that this very imperfectly 
defines the length of the incubative stage, inasmuch. as in all probability 
the native stock is not instantly poisoned, and then the disease is active 
some days before symptoms, such as an ordinary farmer may detect, or 
deaths occur. Itis probable, however, that from eighteen to twenty-five 
days are usually required for the poison to exert any marked influence 
on an animal’s health, and then the second stage occurs. 

Il. The period of invasion—My examination of animals in apparent 
health, picked out of a diseased herd, indicates that the invasion of the 
malady is characterized by an elevation of temperature. Here we have 
some similarity with rinderpest; but since there is not the same uni- 
formity in the length of the incubative stage in splenic fever that there 
is in the Russian murrain, it is probably more common to find steers 
with a normal temperature in a herd infected with the first, than the 
last disease. 

The first opportunity I had of testing this matter was on the 31st of 
July, at Tolono, where we saw the first animal of a herd, a yearling, 
lying dead. I began byexamining a well-bred short-horn cow in bloom- 
ing condition, and found her temperature to be 106° Fahr.; second was 
106.5° Fahr.; third 106.79 Fahr. ; fourth 106.7° Fahr.; fifth 106.1° Fahr. ; 
sixth 107.2° Fahr.; seventh 106.79 Fahr.; eighth 107.2° Fahr.; ninth 
104.2° Fahr.; tenth 106.79 Fahr. 

At Junction City I examined the healthiest- looking animals of an 
infected herd, and noted the following temperatures with one of Casel- 
la’s <li He thermometers: 

First 104.69 Fahr.; second 106.6° Fahr.; third 102.8° Fahr.; fourth 
107.79 Fahr.; fifth 103° Fahr.; sixth 102.4° Fahr.; seventh 105.8° 
Fahr.; eighth 103.49 Fahbr.; ninth 107.2° Fahr.; tenth 102.2° Fahr.; 
eleventh 107.8° Fahr.; twelfth 102.69 Fahr.; thirteenth 103° Fahr.; 
fourteenth 102.4° Fahr.; fifteenth 102.6° Fahr.; sixteenth 102.8° Fahr. ; 
seventeenth 102.6° Fahr. 

I examined three sick steers in this herd, and found their temperature 
to be respectively 104° Fahr., 107.2° Fahr., and 105.8° Fahr. Of the 
apparently healthy ones no less than six indicated a temperature as 
high or higher than the naturally deceased animals, and in all the tem- 
perature was really exalted. 

On Smoky Hill we inspected cattle in blooming health, so far as exter- 
nal appearances would indicate. We had found a case of splenic fever 
there, and determined to have some steers caught with the lasso and 
examined, with the following result : 

7 


98 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


First 103.4° Fahr.; second 102° Fahr.; third 103° Fahr.; fourth 104.2° 
Fahr.; fifth 103° Fahr. 

The last temperature was that of a work ox, one which could be han- 
dled quietly, and it afforded me an opportunity of noticing that the 
lasso did not seem sensibly to affect the temperature. I infer, from a 
considerable range of observation, that animals are from four to six or 
seven days in the process of sickening, from the earliest indication of 
fever heat to the manifestations of decided symptoms of disease. 

Ill. The bleeding or congestive stage.—The acute or active stage of the 
disease is characterized by a series of well-defined symptoms which last 
for two, three, four, and even six days. 


GENERAL APPEARANCE. 


The ears of the animal droop, the gait is sluggish, and secretions some- 
what checked. In cows yielding milk there is a sudden diminution in 
the amount by one-half, more or less. At first the animal eats, rumi- 
nates occasionally, and its paunch appears full; but soon there is a dis- 
position to lie; and, wherever pools exist, the sick cattle are apt to le in 
the water. It has been said that one of the surest premonitory sigus 
was a cough. This does not accord with my experience. The depressed 
head, drooping ears, arched back, hollow flanks, tendency to draw the 
hind legs under the belly, and knuckling over at the fetlocks behind, are 
early and very marked symptoms. The skin is dry and rigid; the faeces 
not materially affected except in a few cases, which show early slight 
hemorrhage; and a small, delicate blood-clot is apt to be seen on the 
surface of the droppings. At first the urine is clear. Many cases are, 
it is true, not observed till the urine is bloody; but it remains of its 
natural color in probably ten or fifteen per cent. of the cases, and is not 
usually one of the earliest signs which a veterinarian can detect. 

The visible mucous membranes are rather pallid. I have seen a turgid 
appearance of the membrane of the nose, with discharge of glairy 
mucus; but any decided redness is usually confined to the folds of the 
rectal membrane, seen when animals defecate. 

The pulse is frequent. In the early stages itis hard and wiry. It 
becomes more feeble, the artery is easily compressed, and in many 
instances, as death approaches, it is not possible to take the pulse at the 
jaw. So far as frequency is concerned, I have found it to vary from 
sixty to one hundred and twenty, and even more. In two cases, where the 
animals were lying with their heads stretched round over the right 
shoulder, and stupefied, the pulse was quite imperceptible at the jaw, 
and the heart-beats numbered one hundred and twenty. 

Thermometric tests are of great value in the active stage of splenic 
fever. There is a considerable difference between different cases ; and, 
in all probability, this depends on the extent to which blood-extravasa- 
tions occur. The temperature is high at the commencement of the 


ee —————_S»Seee 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 99 


attack; but, as death approaches, and bloody urine flows, it is very per- 
ceptibly reduced. 
The annexed table indicates the ascertained temperature of sixty cases: 


Fahr. Fahr. Fahr. Fahr. Fahr. Fahr. 
[@) 19) Oo ie} 2} 1@) 
104. 4 107.0 106, 1 107.2 106. 7 107.2 
103.1 106. 0 102.5 105.8 103.5 103.8 
98. 6 107.2 104.9 104.6 107. 0 105. 0 
106. 0 106. 7 103. 6 106.6 105. 8 106. 0 
102.5 104. 2 103. 1 107.4 106.7 106.5 
98. 6 106.7 106, 0 99.8 99.0 | 104.7 
106. 0 101.3 101. 0 106.5 104.8 107.0 
106.5 106. 7 106.7 107.0 107.4 105. 4 
107.4 106.1 105.5 104, 4 103. 0 105. 8 
106.7 100.5 104. 0 105. 0 104.5 107.0 


To the touch, the temperature of the body varies much. It is not at 
all unusual to have great heat of the poll, of the ears, and horns, and 
of the extremities. At other times the limbs, and especially the hind 
ones, are cold; and the general surface of the body, which is hot in the 
earlier stages of the disease, has a tendency to cool as death approaches. 
The breathing is accelerated, and sometimes labored. In some animals, 
with great restlessness and tendency to delirium, I have found the 
respirations as high as one hundred per minute; whereas, in comatose 
animals, they have been slow, deep, and stertorous. On an average, 
however, the movements of the flanks have indicated simply inereased 
frequency, and have amounted to sixty per minute. 

The nervous phenomena are often very marked. In some the mus- 
cles of the flanks and thighs are seen to be constantly trembling. In 
others there is decided and continuous twitching of the cervical mus- 
eles. In nearly all, when an attempt is made to walk, there is evidence 
of feebleness in the hind limbs, which are rolled from side to side, as 
the animal staggers along. When lying, and wanting to rise, it is found 
that several efforts have to be made before the hind quarters can be 
fairly raised from the ground; and then, in attempting to extend the 
fore limbs, great difficulty is experienced, and the animal often sinks to 
the ground. In one case, which I saw near Tolono, the animal seemed 
fixed to the soil, from inability to direct its muscles. With assistance 
it was got up, but its fore legs were propped out; and, when driven 
along, the action of its limbs was quite irregular, and the animal faltered 
along, to drop again almost immediately. This inability to control the 
voluntary muscles, this defective co-ordination of movement, prevails in 
a less degree in a considerable number of cases. Great listlessness and 
even stupor are very common indications of early death. The most 
singular manifestations of these conditions occurred in two cows. One 


100 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


was lying with its head forcibly drawn onto the right shoulder, and the 
cervical muscles twitching as in a severe attack of chorea. In another 
the animal had the same position of the head, and jerking of the muscles; 
but it was lying motionless on its belly, with all four legs sprawling 
out, as if they had yielded and slipped out without an effort, as the 
body sank to the ground. The state of the secretions is usually a 
good index in the course of the disease. There is little tendency to free 
perspiration, and the only remarkable change of the skin is cedema, 
which distends it in some cases below the jaw, or under the sternum. 
Hide-bound and costive, the animals indicate the febrile crisis by slight 
blood-staining of the feeces and by hematuria. The latter is commonly 
profuse, until the animal is so far paralyzed in its hind quarters that 
there is retention. 

With rare exceptions, the bladder is found distended, and weighs, 
with its bloody contents, ten, twelve, or fourteen pounds; this, too, just 
after the animal has urinated immediately before or in the act of death. 
Under the microscope the urine presents no tints, but only amorphous 
deposits of hematin, and some epithelial cells. From first to last, it 
coagulates by the aid of heat and nitric acid, except in those cases 
where it retains its normal color. 

The milk secretion is all but entirely suspended, and the little which 
is drawn is dense, and mainly composed of cream. No change of a 
definite kind can be detected by a microscope. 

IV. Termination—In the majority of cases depression and listlessness 
increase, the pulse increases in frequency, the respiration becomes labored, 
the animal heat reduced to 100° and to 98° Fahr.; and the animal 
stretches out on the ground, on which it has been lying motionless for 
some time, and dies without a struggle. 

In exceptional eases the febrile symptoms subside, the secretion of 
milk in cows is restored, the color of the urine becomes paler and paler, 
till it is normal, and the animal recovers in ten days or a fortnight, only 
indicating its previous condition by a stiffness of gait and considerable 
emaciation. A month or six weeks is required before evidence of 
thriving is obtained. 

I have seen animals in apparently a convalescent state and manifest- 
ing considerable appetite; after distending their stomachs on grass, 
they have appeared uneasy, the fever has returned, diarrhea set in, 
and death occurred within thirty-six or forty-eight hours. Such acci- 
dents are undoubtedly dependent on the lesions of the fourth stomach 
and intestines. They are gastroenteric complications, and not indica- 
tions of a true relapse. 


POST-MORTEM APPEARANCES. 


The structural lesions which occur in splenic fever are so numerous 
and various, that I deem it advisable to transcribe the notes of a suffi- 
cient number of examinations in support of a summary, which may be 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 101 


considered sufficient for practical purposes by many who may refer to 
this report. 

That form of splenic fever which is mostly latent, and seen among 
southern cattle, is not recognizable after death by the condition of 
skin, muscular system, or, in many cases, even by the mucous membrane, 
with the exception of that of the stomach. More or less, however, the 
blood-extravasations, congestions, and blood-stained urine have been 
found; but these would very rarely have been noticed but for the plan, 
suggested by me, of inspecting all slaughtered cattle and carefully weigh- 
ing the spleens. 

Dr. Rauch, the medical officer of the city of Chicago, no sooner ascer- 
tained my wishes than he arranged for the supervision of all slaughter- 
houses in Chicago; and for weighing, in the first instance, all the spleens, 
and, later, all the livers as well as spleens of slaughtered cattle. To Dr. 
Rauch’s energy and care we are, therefore, indebted for facts which none 
but a medical officer of health, armed with the necessary powers, could 
well have obtained. Inasmuch as the tables can only serve for purposes 
of reference, it has been thought proper to publish them in an appendix; 
but the facts brought to light admit of being readily stated, and it is due 
to Dr. Rauch that I should quote his report to the board of health of 
Chicago, read on the 18th of September, in demonstration of the valuable 
conclusions he was enabled to show very shortly after adopting this 
method of observation: 

The weight, feel, and texture of the spleen and the condition of the urine have been 
found to be almost infallible in diagnosing the disease. Since the investigation com- 
menced over two thousand spleens have been weighed. During the first few days of the 
investigation the spleens only were weighed, but as your committee began better to 
comprehend the importance of the questions involved, and the value of the facts to be 
learned, the livers were also ordered to be examined at the same time. Of these about 
five hundred have already been weighed. The committee have only had time to present 
the average of the three different kinds of cattle slaughtered here. 


175 native | 175 Texas | 175 Cherokee | 175 native | 175 Texan | 175 Cherokee 
spleens. spleens. (2?) spleens. livers. livers. (2) livers. 
Pounds. Ponnds. Pounds. Pounds. Pounds. | Pounds. 
Aggregate weight ......-.. 260 441 3824 2, 2272 21324 | 1, 8784 
Aty erage. Sees. tkdae 14 Qt 2.15 12. 45 12, 15 10. 45 


The above were taken indiscriminately, and do not include any of the marked cases 
that have fallen under our observation. During the past week spleens have been found 
in Texas and in Cherokee cattle that were as much disorganized as any that were found 
in the native cattle that died from the disease. The important part that the spleen 
performs in the economy of cattle will be better appreciated when it is recollected that 
its enlargement and disorganization are always present in this disease, while the condi- 
tion of the other organs may be regarded as concomitant. The liver was at one time 
supposed to show evidences of enlargement and increase of weight in this disease, but 
this does by no means necessarily follow, as in some of the most marked cases no change 
whatever in the size of the liver was perceptible. In fact, as a general rule, it has been 
found that, whenever the animal was in a good condition, the spleen weighed less and 


102 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


the liver more than when the opposite was the case. It was also noticed that in the 
animals which had been driven or transported a great distance the spleen weighed more 
in proportion than the liver. When the animal is in good condition the liver is large; 
when there is a depressed or lower condition of vitality the spleen is enlarged. 

The annexed table gives the results of calculations based on the tables 
in the appendix; and it is safe to draw conclusions after the careful 
examination of no less than 4,739 cases. These indicate that the average 
weights of spleens are in excess in southern cattle over those witnessed 
among western steers, the excess amounting from half to upwards of one 
pound. Many of the Texas cattle had spleens weighing over three pounds, 
Some of the so-called Cherokee cattle might be from the Indian Nation, 
near the Texan frontier, but few were from the Cherokee Nation, and 
many, no doubt, from Texas itself. This will explain the note of interro- 
gation I have used wherever the term Cherokee has been used, in accord- 
ance with the information that has been tendered to me. , 

It is very important to notice that the earlier observations in August, 
when the spleens alone were weighed, brought out a greater indication 
of deviations from health in the spleens of southern cattle than later on. 
Thus the averages were— 


Native. Cherokee (?.) Texan. 


Na AWE S bie canis a ie Seta = Seale 1.38 2. 36 2. 83 
1.45 1. 942 2. 531 


WngSeptember << o...6 cc cseee seis es eect 


It is much to be desired that the weights of internal organs be better 
determined in future in all enzootic diseases and during all seasons. 
This field of inquiry promises ample and valuable results. 


a2 o 

23 35 
et LOE ae 
Native western Cherokee (? Eo ne 
@ Texan cattle. General totals. fapasee n= 
cattle. cattle. 5 = bo 
Set one 
= St j= 

i) 


es 2 ry 
2 PA Se 3 S/ 2 
S gs 2 a 3 3 |3 
é 5 a | 2 Sy 2 ee 
2 mn by 4B Se (2/218 
~~ . ~~ nm ~ 
Sc a aN I I me esc MES 
i = & 2 a ® ca ve) E a 3 
o =I 3S < = o 2 = =) a = ro = 5 a 
3 os S| 3 | a 3S = a a a o peatlngct oO 
=| io ro) | Bs =| r= o 8 zt oO a a (eo wet 
Sa ly =r ee Ce reba Meta sae bo! | SB | 8/8/85 
G2 = — ar] = > = ro ror md D> = ee || 
Lbs.| Lbs. Lbs Lbs. | Lbs.| Lbs. | Lbs. | Lbs. | Lbs.| Lbs. Lbs. Lbs. |Lbs.| Lbs.| Lbs. 
T’l weight 
of spleens.| 3753) 1, 4414! 1,9634) 5773] 241/1, 0342/1, 1093) 694 701| 3, 7804/1, 853. 25)1, 8793 183$ 3019) 530 
Average..| 1.46] 1.423) 1.467] 1. 60/1. 585) 2.345) 2. 259) 2. 377)2. 675 1.45 1. 942) 2. 5381/1. 38/2. 36/2. 83 


T’l weight 
of livers. -|2, 92912, 3614/16, 6794| 3, 731/1, 611)4, 7023) 6, 070 360 |3, 139) 31, 9704) 10, 044%) 9, 969) 
Average..|11. 39) 12.214) 12. 466/10. 335) 10. 6) 10. 66) 12. 36/12. 413/11. 98) 12.263) 10. 529/12. 236 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 103 


The examination, after death, of cattle in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, 
and Kansas, indicates that the usual post-mortem appearances, in well- 
marked cases of splenic fever, are as follows: 

The skin, very often infested with ticks, is occasionally seen studded 
with dried drops of blood, as if the animal had sweated blood in dying. 
Then small blood clots have been found freely distributed over the neck, 
trunk, and limbs, and especially between the thighs. 

On removing the skin, blood-extravasations, or serous infiltrations, 
are sometimes found beneath the lower jaw and brisket. The subcuta- 
neous areolar tissue, as a rule, is pallid and not congested, as in anthrax. 

The muscular system is normal, and I have not been able to distin- 
guish any deviation from the common appearance of slaughtered cattle, 
if the animals are examined immediately after death. 

The organs of respiration are, in many instances, healthy. The res- 
piratory passages are always so. The lungs, sometimes the’seat of cada- 
veric congestion, on the side on which the dead body has been lying 
are occasionally ecchymosed, and the pleura is of a dark purplish color, 
over distinct lobules which are found intensely congested, but never 
hepatized throughout their substance. It has not occurred to me to find 
a Single portion of lung tissue which would not float on water. 

In nearly half the cases the collapse of the lungs, when the chest is 
opened, is imperfect; and according to the extent of interference with 
this collapse do we find interlobular emphysema. The areolar tissue 
between the lobules is blown up with air; and on the outer aspect of 
the lung, especially on the arteries and middle lobes, a beaded and 
streaked appearance, owing to the distension of the connective structure, 
is striking and well marked. The pleure are rarely found changed; 
but occasionally, scattered over the mediastinal reflections or on the 
diaphragm, are well-marked ecchymoses. 

The pericardium is unusually empty, but I have found it considerably 
distended with bloody serum. The surface of the heart is almost inva- 
riably blood-stained to a greater or less extent. The most common seat 
of these ecchymoses is on the apex, or the auricular appendages. In 
the right side a small blood clot is very commonly found in animals that 
have been lying dead for several hours, and the left side is found 
empty. Both ventricles, and sometimes even the auricles, may be found 
entirely eechymosed; but, as a rule, the extravasations are most marked 
and extensive in the left ventricle, and especially on the fleshy pillars. 


DIGESTIVE ORGANS. 


The mouth, pharynx, and cwsophagus. are always healthy. The 
rumen is usually full of food, and its coats healthy. The mucous mem- 
brane alone has been found congested in two cases. 

The recticulum, or second stomach, containing semi-fluid material, 
has been often found reddened ; but especially in cows which had swal- 
lowed nails, wires, needles, and other foreign objects, that are so com- 


104 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


monly found in the second stomach of cattle. In two cases wires had 
perforated the recticulum and diaphragm, and in one the pericardium 
was adherent to the diaphragm, and injured. 

The omasum, or third stomach, is almost invariably in a normal con- 
dition; and whereas there are some instances in which it is consider- 
ably distended, and the food packed dry between the folds, there is 
no appreciable difference between the condition in which we have found 
it in our numerous dissections, and the state we should expect to find it 
in a similar number of healthy cattle. 

The abomasum, or fourth stomach, is almost invariably the seat of 
distinct and specific changes. On opening it, throughout its whole length 
itis found varying from a pink to adeep blood-red color over its cardiac 
end. The pyloric end is more commonly of a natural color. But 
although there is this marked difference in the general aspect of the 
two sections of the abomasum, both present further and very character- 
istic morbid appearances. In the cardiac end, three different forms of 
lesion are seen, in different cases. In some the folds, and even the mem- 
brane between the folds, are studded irregularly with minute petechiz 
of a dark, blood-red color. Each petechia is like a flea-bite, though 
somewhat smaller, and darker in color. Its center is dark, and some- 
times softened or perforated. The areola around this center is well 
defined and regular, offering a marked contrast to the surrounding mem- 
brane, which, though usually congested and reddened, is not of the same 
depth of color as the petechial spot. In other cases the reddened folds 
are studded with minute yellowish-gray granulations, due to a change 
in the epithelium, which becomes swollen, and has a tendency to drop 
off. Each granulation does not usually exceed the size of a pin’s head. 
This appearance is most marked where the folds are most congested; 
and in some cases, where the congestion is slight, itrequires a somewhat 
careful inspection to recognize the presence of this change. Scattered 
throughout the folds, especially near their free edges, we find the 
third change, which consists in marked erosions, as if the epithelium 
had been peeled off with a sharp finger nail. 

The margins of the erosion are well defined, and of the color of the 
surrounding membrane, or they are often paler. The center of each ero- 
sion is of a blood-red or brownish color. 

It is very rare to find the pyloric end, however natural its general 
aspect, without some well-defined patch, off which the epithelium is strip- 
ped and a dark, granular surface left, to which the green food adheres 
more or less firinly. On the pyloric gland this erosion, as frequently 
observed, is of a zigzag form, and tolerably deep fissures into the mem- 
brane give to the gland a shrivelled and wrinkled appearance. 

Ihave seen nearly the whole of the mucous surface in the pyloric 
antrum eroded ; but more commonly there are three, four, or more iso- 
lated patches, varying from half aninch to eventwo inches in diameter. 

The duodenum is often of a deep red color. Sometimes its mucous 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 105 


membrane is deeply tinged with bile. At others it is the seat of scat- 
tered ecchymoses, less numerous and regular than those on the folds of 
the abomasum. 

The jejunum and ileum may be reddened throughout on their mucous 
surface. Sometimes the redness is in patches. It is punctiform; and, 
in parts, ecchymoses heighten the general color. In one case I found one 
of Peyer’s glands somewhat tumefied, but free from any deposit around, 
and simply turgid and congested. The cecum is often extensively ecchy- 
mosed, especially on the free margin of the effaceable mucous folds, so 
that, when the membrane is stretched, it has a striped appearance. The 
stripes may be of a bright or rusty-red color, but are often blackened, as 
we so commonly find, with blood extravasions in the large intestine of 
eattle. The ileo-colic fold is usually ecchymosed, tumefied, or of a black- 
ish color. Scattered petechiz are not uncommon, and the fundus of the 
czeeum may be found the seat of marked, ramified redness. The general 
appearance of the mucous lining of the colon is often the same. In the 
rectum the folds are commonly ecchymosed, and we have found free but 
delicate clots adherent to the membrane. The blackened appearance of 
the interstitial extravasations is nearly as common in the rectum as in the 
cecum. 

The liver, so often the seat of chronic lesion in cattle, such as thicken- 
ing and induration of the capsule in spots, is often the seat of fatty de- 
generations, and is found congested and heavy in some cases ; whereas 
the reverse holds good in others. Reference to the weights of the livers 
will show that there is no relation between any distinct state of the organ, 
as ascertained by the sealer, and the existence of splenic fever. 

The gall bladder is usually distended with viscid bile, and its lining 
membrane is at times the seat of ramified redness. The coats of the gall 
bladder have been found, in several cases, much thickened by intersti- 
tial, serous infiltration, which, from being retained in the areolwe of the 
connective tissue, had the appearance of a gelatinous mass. 

The spleen is uniformly enlarged, as indicated by the many observa- 
tions noted in the tables published in the appendix. The weight varies 
from two to ten pounds. It rarely exceeds six or seven. One of the 
largest Texan spleens, weighing eight pounds, and found by one of Dr. 
Rauch’s inspectorsin a slaughtered animal, measured twenty-seven inches 
in length, seven and one-half inches in width, and three inches in thick- 
ness at its thickest point. 

The spleen is of a purplish color, its peritoneal surface sometimes 
ecchymosed; and, on making an incision into its capsule, the pulp oozes 
out. A section shows the complete effusement of the usual granular 
look, due to the very marked Malpighian bodies, so well seen in the ox’s 
spleen. The scraping with a knife readily forces out the currant-jelly- 
like pulp, and leaves the trabecul free and clear. In thirty well-marked 
diseased spleens, Dr. Mannheimes found only two in which the trabe-_ 
cul were firm and sound. They were destroyed and completely unrecog- 
nizable from any other part of the tissues of the organ. 


106 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


URINARY ORGANS. 


The kidneys may be perfectly healthy, but are most commonly of a 
dark brownish-red color, from intense congestion. The pelvis of each may 
be normal; but, in the earliest stages, I have found linear interstitial 
blood deposits in the mucous membrane. At first these are of a bright 
arterial hue, but they become more extensive and dark in color as the 
disease advances. Whenever there is bloody urine in the bladder, the 
pelvis of each kidney contains some of the same. In one case I found 
one of the lobes of the right kidney fluctuating on pressure, and, when 
opened, it was found to contain a cyst, distended by a couple of ounces 
of dark, bloody urine. In the majority of cases the urinary bladder is 
found very much distended with blood-colored urine. Its mucous sur- 
face may be normal and pallid, but is sometimes congested; and, in 
several cases, I have found it studded with very minute ecchymoses, 
which have existed either in the fundus or at the cervix, or have been 
thickly disseminated over the whole of the internal lining. The organs 
of generation are found healthy, and cows with calf have always re- 
tained the foetus, whether it was a few days or several weeks old. In 
one case I found the peritoneal surface of the womb studded with ecchy- 
moses precisely similar to those seen on the internal surface of the blad- 
der, and in another, the broad ligaments of the uterus had a marked 
appearance of the same description. 


NERVOUS SYSTEM. 


In all the cases in which partial paralysis of the hind quarters alone 
was marked, we found the upper cornua of the gray matter in the lum- 
bar region reddened; and the microscopical examination showed blood- 
extravasations and staining of the nerve cells. This appearance could 
be traced in all parts of the cord, in cases of more general paralysis; and, 
in one instance in which it was most general and marked, there was 
blood-extravasation outside the dura mater, beneath the medulla oblong- 
ata. Thé gray matter of the medulla was itself slightly blood-stained. 
On opening the cranium, in one instance, we found the inner surface of 
the dura mater studded with bright red spots, similar to the small ecchy- 
moses seen in the urinary bladder; and the spots were distributed over 
the whole of the cranial surface. The pia mater is often congested, and 
the gray matter of the cerebrum and the cerebellum often reddened. The 
puncta vasculosa, in the oval centers, are very marked; and the lateral 
ventricles, in one case, contained a little reddish-colored serum. Beyond 
this tendency to congestion and occasional blood-extravasation, no lesion 
was discovered in the nervous system; and both white and gray matter 
was usually firm and not softened. 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 107 


CAUSES AND NATURE OF THE DISEASE. 


In those parts where the splenic or periodic fever of cattle is enzootic, 
the prevailing influences are such as favor the development of intermit- 
tent disease in man. There are parts more healthy than others; and 
the beneficial effects of constant winds, a dry soil, adequate elevation, 
and the introduction of good systems of culture, tend to make many 
regions in the vast countries over which malarious conditions prevail 
favorable for the health and prosperity of man. In the most swampy 
parts those diseases annually recur with the intense heat of summer 
which are known to characterize low and unhealthy lands in all parts of 
the world, and these often persist even in the winter season. The bilious 
remittent and intermittent fevers in man are represented in animals by 
the deadly charbon or anthrax, the black tongue of domestic and wild 
ruminants, as also by a marked form of the splenic fever which I am 
describing. 

Texas and Florida have been chosen as resorts for invalids—for con- 
sumptive people during the winter. They are considered so healthy 
countries, that to cast a doubt over the salubrity of Texas might lead 
any one into difficulties in that State. It is not too much to say of the 
State that its acclimatized inhabitants prefer to live there rather than 
choose what might be viewed as a healthier climate further north. But 
it is impossible for an unprejudiced stranger traveling through the State 
not to observe the usual spare habit of body, the sallow, yellowish com- 
plexion, and the want of activity that prevail among the inhabitants. 
There are exceptions and exceptional spots; but any one traveling from 
Maine to Texas can satisfy himself that some condition, whether of soil 
or climate, is unfavorable to the health of man. 

ILhad not anticipated witnessing the universal indication of a low 
standard of health in animals. Texans pride themselves on their herds 
of beeves, on the size cattle often attain, on the masses of fat rolling 
over the bones and muscles of steers fed only on mesquite, and they 
look on Texas as a center whence the world may be supplied with beeves. 

There is every reason for believing that Texas must remain one of the 
greatest, if not the greatest, cattle-growing State of the Union. But its 
progress and prosperity demand that farmers should be informed of the 
conditions which are ever in operation against them, and they will 
doubtless bring their intelligence and industry to bear in correcting evils 
that are far from imaginary. 

Inquiries as to the diseases of Texan cattle in Texas are almost always 
met by people of that State by the declaration that cattle are never sick 
there ;—yet a ‘norther” may sweep down and drive the cattle onto a 
narrow neck of land, where they have to starve at times for want of 
food; drought, as in 1864, sometimes destroys thousands; while in the 
winter excessive wet destroys the grasses, favors diarrhea, and unless 
the cattle can get in the woods and eat some swamp moss, wild 


108 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


onions, or other products of the river bottoms they must occasionally 
succumb. 

The close of 1868 and beginning of 1869 have been remarkable for an 
excessive amount of rain. Cattle have suffered largely, and on all 
the sedge grass lands along the Brazos starvation has been uncommon. 
Further west, on the mesquite, not far from Corpus Christi, &c., cattle 
have been in fair condition; but some idea of the scarcity of really fat 
cattle during the winter months may-be obtained from the fact that, at 
Indianola, cattle for New Orleans market could not be had under twenty 
dollars in gold. We hear so much of cattle being worth only a few dol- 
lars a head in summer, and people killing them by the thousand for 
their hides and tallow, that the only reason to be given for heavy win- 
ter prices is the scarcity of really fat stock, and the great distance it 
has to be driven, even to such a port as Indianola. 

I have seen many large herds of Texan cattle that had been wintered 
in Illinois, Indiana, or Missouri, and have made myself acquainted with 
the average run of weights of cattle in Texas, and one most important 
fact appears, viz., that a Texan steer will increase in twelve months, on 
the grasses of a more northern latitude than those of his native State, 
by one, two, and three hundred pounds over and above the highest 
weight he will ever attain in Texas. Let us take the cattle fed on the 
mesquite, said to be fat all the year round—and where, therefore, an 
animal has not to make up for lost condition—and age for age, it will 
take three of them to weigh down the Illinois steer, and probably tour. 
I take the best and the average, and it will be found, on careful exami- 
nation, that the cattle on the noted grasses of Texas, whether from the 
soil, heat, water, or other cause, do not attain the weight and condition 
that the same cattle do if removed to the north, nor that northern or 
western cattle do on their own native prairies. 

Texans are finding this out; and, much to their credit, they are intro- 
ducing a system of corn-feeding that gives them cattle that can compete 
in western markets with other corn-fed cattle. They can, it is true, show 
us some prodigies off mesquite grounds, but the average run of grass- 
fed cattle in Texas might be improved enormously by attention to the 
subjects of breeding, shelter, artificial feeding, -We. 

What are the active causes in operation, which tend to influence pre- 
judicially the stamina of southern herds? Traveling over the prairies, 
no one ean fail to be struck by the large number of dead animals to be 
met with. The dissection of these, or the slaughter and dissection of 
the first animal met with, reveals three distinct and unfavorable mani- 
festations. The spleen is enlarged; the animals have, without exception, 
the “ague cake”—the stamp of a malarious district; the liver is fatty, 
and this is a lesion that might be anticipated in so warm a country ; the 
true stomach is reddened at its left end, the membrane is eroded, or ap- 
pears scratched with a sharp nail on its folds, and although there may be 
only a single and small erosion, nevertheless the trace of gastric disor- 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 109 


der is there. I have not failed in a single instance in Texas to trace 
this, and I have opened as many as twenty-six animals per day, weigh- 
ing their organs carefully, and watching closely for these signs. Some- 
times the scars of old ulcers are more marked than the erosions on the 
mucous folds, and it is not uncommon to find there traces of ancient 
lesions about the pylorus, or intestinal opening. 

My observations extend further. From the earliest age that the calf 
feeds on grass, to the oldest thatsa bullock attains, the morbid lesions 
alluded to are found. They grow better and worse, and, in dissecting 
a dozen animals, one or two will be found to have blood extravasations, 
of a very limited and delicate character, in the pelvis of the kidney, in 
the urinary bladder, and in the intestinal mucous membrane. During 
the summer, so far as I can learn, more than at any other season, a few 
bullocks in a herd may be seen to droop behind, and void bloody urine. 
Mr. Louis Brandt, now a practicing veterinarian in New York, and who 
lived twelve years in Texas, often witnessed these symptoms; and per- 
sons engaged in shipping large quantities of cattle throughout the year, 
have told me that they have at times seen the symptoms. 

Itis difficult to get at the truth ; butfrom personal observation, and very 
careful and numerous inquiries, I am in a position to state that almost 
if not quite universally in the States bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, 
and for a distance of at least two or three hundred miles inland, the 
cattle do not attain the full weight they can and do reach elsewhere ; 
that they very commonly appear in blooming health, and are usually free 
from acute and marked symptoms of any disease; that, nevertheless, 
these animals are usually more anemic and less firm than northern cat- 
tle, and that, without exception, all of them that I have dissected have 
shown the spleen enlarged to twice or thrice its usual weight, the liver 
slightly or very fatty, and the true stomach reddened and eroded. The 
removal of these animals to a northern State results, especially as winter 
approaches, in a diminished size of spleen, a great deposit of fat and 
development of blood and muscle, and the cicatrization of the gastric 
lesions. 

Side by side with observations made by.,me in Texas, on the bodies of 
animals that had died, and on others slaughtered in apparent health, 
must be placed Mr. Ravenel’s researches in relation to the cryptogamic 
origin of the disease. I do not wish to forestall his observations, or the 
report of Doctors Billings and Curtis, but certainly it appeared that the 
grasses which the animals ate had a healthy aspect, were not infected by 
parasitic plants, and could not, on a casual observation, be recognized 
as presenting any peculiar character that might account for the ill health 
of animals eating them. 

Conjecture is not always profitable, and «s yet it is impossible to say 
more with certainty than that, in a warm country, where a rich and re- 
tentive soil is ever charged with considerable moisture, and where arti- 
ficial systems of culture are in their infancy, a general low tone of sys- 


110 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


tem prevails, which manifests itself in the shape of an imperfect devel- 
opment of blood, an enlargement of blood glands, and very significant 
lesions of the stomach and liver. 

Descriptions of the Texan fever, which have been published for years 
past, all agree that the Texan and also Florida cattle, which have caused 
so much mischief, appear themselves to be in perfect health; and the 
thriving condition of many herds in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and 
Kansas tended, at first, to convince ‘us that whatever injured the im- 
proved breeds indigenous to these States had no effect on the natives of 
the country, the long-horned Texan cattle. It is true that at Cairo we 
were informed, by a gentleman whose statement we had no reason to 
doubt, that he had seen many Texan cattle die in the railway pens; and 
as many as nine or tenin one morning had been found dead, having, in 
his opinion, succumbed to the same disease as that destroying the cows 
of the inhabitants of Cairo. He supplied the hay for all the cattle landed 
there, and about the first lots, landed in April, appeared sound; but he 
afterwards saw three or four lots, numbering from two hundred and fifty 
to five hundred head, which were affected by the prevailing disease. He 
distinctly avers that six, eight, and even ten head of dead cattle were 
hauled off the boats when they arrived laden with stock, and the men 
in charge got medicine for the disease. One lot of two hundred and 
fifty animals, referred to by this informant, was taken off the cars at 
Farina, after leaving Cairo for the north, simply because they were suf- 
fering severely, and it was supposed that this arose from the journey ; 
but they communicated disease to all the cattle that fed in their path, 
and killed forty-seven out of fifty Illinois cattle with which they grazed, 
from the 10th of May to the middle of June. 

In opposition to hearsay evidence, it was my duty to examine cattle 
alive and those which were dead. J saw sixty-four Texan steers, fresh 
from New Orleans, which were unloaded at Cairo, on the Ist of August. 
They all appeared healthy. We had previously seen a considerable quan- 
tity of the same kind of stock without being able to detect the slightest 
evidence of disease ; and were happy to receive an invitation to visit 
Mr. Alexander’s farm, at Brondlands, near Homer, where there were four 
thousand five hundred and twenty-seven Texan steers, which had been 
driven to Brondlands, and had communicated disease not only to the cat- 
tle feeding on their trail, but also to a herd of Illinois cattle, with which 
they were mixed in reaching their destination. 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. iid 


The numbers and dates relating to the several importations at Brondlands 
are as follows : 


Purchased at— Date of arrival at Brondlands. No. 

HO ONO eet eee a oat och yak are, ae Manes sp SOG) 8 iets ce eas 2 499 
OGG es ep oo CERO e nee eae eer JUNG pea Sb8s. een yee se 228 
PRGLOM ON ee ee =a ante a a eile nines Sy roc sm: SIMS SOG tee sae eee ane 496 
IRGLGMOMe eo eetecioe = soe ore pene tomo cee oe JUMer 20 ISGHSMILE on Leet ee nae 349 
POG aes: nese Se Rack Pee Fak es Sumer Zo plSGS se j2- oe ches cites 537 
Bor ENO Ss Se he oe ae tere See ee ene SUMNER O MUSHSUSS see aese Foe asses 140 
MOON... S334 eee es sss 3% Junens0) L868 Sih eess-sis55 203 107 
PA OUIIOS 35 act e sae oh ops bis slices ulliye ye 2 WB OS vans st Seer cect. See 248 
PAID ONIN Oies Sa ors eta ayes a site sep een diwihyavias WUchiceee, ne nenn et Senses 241 
CLIP ee caaee a AaatehOe Seer SEE aBemEee 00 alle Ue, Sic Se a aie Serene gs 195 
MOlOHONsese's S37 ces Hels sake eee cles e ss July 22 SOS so. sees a leeetere aoe 362 
PROLGHOM Sees jaetelec mene etme etc Juilly” 2b, 1BO8ir soe ce slates eet 611 
PROlOnO ee dt Seee ee ees seek ek BPS ullye 2851 868 s2 ey: 4 2he Se soot se 514 

| 4,527 


Up to the 12th of September, the date of a letter from Brondlands, 
thirty-one of the animals had died, “‘most if not all of them from inju- 
ries received in transit.” Out of four thousand five hundred and twen- 
ty-seven animals driven or transported in steamers and on railroads, 


- considering the great distances these had to travel, it is not surprising that 


some should die; and all which we examined alive appeared healthy 
and thriving. That they communicated disease to a very serious extent 
is proved beyond doubt; and it would have been important to deter- 
mine, by the slaughter of many, their real condition. 

On the 6th of August I visited Brondlands a second time, for the 
purpose of dissecting a Texan steer which the people of the neighbor- 
hood believed would show signs of the disease. We inspected the herds 
generally, which still looked in perfect health, but one of the imported 
cattle was reported ill and dying. He had reached the farm about the 
middle of July. and had not thriven well. It was, as usual, supposed 
that he had sustained injuries on the journey. When I saw this animal 
alive, he was lying down, with his head stretched on the ground; imper- 
ceptible pulse at the jaw, great listlessness and prostration, but pre- 
senting no distinctive symptoms of splenic fever. After death 1 found 
that there was an effusion of bloody serum under the jaw. The organs 
of respiration were healthy, and the heart sound. The whole of the 
stomach and the intestines were normal; as also the liver, gall bladder, 
and spleen. The kidneys and bladder exhibited no signs of blood 
extravasations, or alteration in the urine, such as is seen in splenic 
fever. From the general emaciation of the body, and the absence of 
any lesion of disease, it was evident to me that this animal had died of 


Tt2 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


hectic; or, in other words, of the ill effects of prolonged starvation and 
ill usage, which had permanently arrested the functions of assimilation. 
The Texan cattle were intermixed in the pastures of Brondlands with 
about six hundred native animals. All but two hundred and eighty of 
these were soon sent to eastern markets, and those which remained with 
them began to die on the 26th of July. They were then placed on green 
corn; but they continued to sicken and succumb to the disease, until 
one hundred and ninety-eight of all kinds, including an old yoke of 
Texan steers which had been some time on the farm, had been buried. 
At the time of my visit, the mortality was raging at its highest point, 
and men were busy, from sunrise to sunset, skinning, digging graves, 
and burying. Information afterwards received was that one hundred 
and fifty of the cattle sent to New York died before they arrived there, 
and the rest were sent to the rendering tanks. 

Colonel Sullivan, of Twin Grove, Vermillion County, Ill, purchased 
five hundred Texan steers at Cairo, on the 24th of May. They remained 
healthy, but communicated disease to forty Illinois steers and twenty 
heifers and cows. The disease appeared at Twin Grove on Tuesday, 
the 28th of July. Of the Texan steers three have died as the result of 
accident. The next group of southern cattle, which came under special 
observation, was that of J. A. Harris, near Champaign. He had eighty- 
five head of southern cattle, purchased last fall. There were with 
them thirty-eight Illinois steers, and this herd of one hundred and 
twenty-three had grazed together the entire season. On the 15th of 
July they were placed on pasture over which a herd of Texans had* 
been driven on the 15th of June. On the 3d of August the Illinois 
began to die; and, in four days, twenty out of the thirty-eight were 
buried. The eighty-five southern cattle remained in perfect health. 

This special immunity of the cattle imported from the south indicated 
that they had overcome the influences which operate, however mildly, 
to the prejudice of their health in the south. 

On the 15th of August we visited Hickory Grove, near Oxford, Indi- 
ana, There were there one thousand animals, which had been imported 
in the fall of 1867, and had caused no disease either in transit or on the 
farm. On the Ist of June, 1868, two hundred and sixteen head were 
purchased, which came from New Orleans and Memphis; and, on the 
12th of July and the 8th of August, two separate droves of one thousand 
head were taken on the farm from Tolono. The condition of the whole 
of this stock was as perfect as any grazier could desire. Many of them 
were quite fit for the butcher; and those purchased last were in a thriv- 
ing condition. The last two droves communicated disease on their trail ; 
but, being by themselves at Hickory Grove, had no opportunity of 
inflicting any damage. 

At Parish Grove, adjoining the last named farm, a herd of about five 
hundred Texan cattle had just been imported from Tolono. It was said 
that the cattle, on their way from Paxton to Hickory Grove, in July, 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. ae 


referred to above, had crossed the prairie in which the Parish Grove, 
Illinois, cattle, numbering five hundred, had grazed. Within seven or 
eight days after the last herd of five hundred cattle had reached Parish 
Grove from Tolono, the [linois cattle began to die. Fifteen car loads 
of these had just been sent by rail to Chicago; and, of the remaining 
number, few survived. I inspected four sick steers, and it was evident 
that the malady would destroy nearly ail the Dllinois stock. On an 
adjoining farm Mr. Edward Sumner had nearly one thousand head of 
northern cattle, among which the disease had appeared. 

On the 14th of August we visited Mr. Joseph Heath’s farm, near 
Oxford, Indiana, and found there one thousand one hundred Texan cat- 
tle which had been purchased at New Orleans and Tolono. These had 
communicated disease over the road they had passed, and Mr. Heath’s 
native stock, numbering seventy or eighty, were dying fast. We exam- 
ined three alive, and dissected two, showing all the indications of splenie 
fever. 

On the next day, at Reynolds, we visited a herd of over two hundred 
Texan steers, which had arrived on the 27th of May; and disease 
appeared at Reynolds the beginning of June. One ear load of the ani- 
mals was unloaded at Chalmers, and driven onto J. M. Bunnell’s pasture, 
at Reynolds. They remained there only two days; but, five weeks after- 
wards, the disease appeared, and killed the whole of Mr. Bunnell’s stock, 
amounting to eighteen head or thereabout. The bulk of the Texan eat- 
tle were sent to Kenton’s pasture, three miles from Reynolds, where they 
were mixed with seventy-three head of native cattle. Of these, at the 
time of our visit, from fifty-five to sixty had already died, and others 
were sick. Cattle on the west side of the track at Reynolds were safe ; 
but cattle east, between the station and Kenton’s pasture, had died. 

It is worthy of special mention here that, for the first time, the trans- 
portation of Texan cattle was established in 1868 from New Orleans, by 
steamboats up the Mississippi to Cairo; and thence, viathe Nlinois Central 
road, to the pastures of Ilinois and Indiana, having heretofore been sent, 
since the war, from New Orleans up the Mississippi to Louisville, Ken- 
tucky, with the same'results as at Cairo. The first lot of Texan cattle 
was landed at Cairo on the 23d day of April; and between that time 
and the Ist of August, when the railway peremptorily refused to trans- 
port any more stock, about sixteen thousand animals passed from the 
south on that route. At Cairo the splenic fever appeared about the end 
of May, or beginning of June; at Farina, early in July; at Tolono, on 
the 20th of July; and thence, at later periods, usually dating five weeks 
from the time the Texan cattle were driven onto the roads and pastures, 
where disease afterward appeared. The majority of the cattle, amount- 
ing probably to ten thousand, were handled by the railroad people at 
Tolono; and Mr. Charles Troyford, of that place, who had lost forty- 
eight out of ninety-eight [linois cattle by the disease, at the time of our 
visit, informed me that he had not seen a single Texan steer diseased, 

8 


114 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. ; 


out of the whole ten thousand; the feeding, driving, and delivering of 
which he had personally superintended. 

From the commencement of my inquiries, [ had considered it highly 
probable that cases of splenic fever would be found even among south- 
ern stock; and rewards were offered, at Tolone and elsewhere, to any 
one who would indicate cases alive or dead. Considering that, wher- 
ever we traveled, the people whose stock had been destroyed were most 
anxious to furnish us the positive proof, if such could be obtained, it is 
remarkable that not a single case was brought under our notice. 

T returned to Chicago, and again had occasion to inspect both Texan 
and [linois cattle in the slaughter-houses; and having, by that time, 
ascertained the means whereby even the latent forms of the disease 
might be discovered after death, I had no difficulty in tracing lesions in 
Steers reputed healthy, and slaughtered for human food. This infor- 
mation I communicated at once to Dr. Rauch, medical officer of health 
of the city of Chicago, who invited me to address a meeting of the 
board of health, on Tuesday, the 18th of August; and, as what I then 
stated is of material moment in the history of developments made by 
me on this subject, [ do not hesitate to transcribe, from the short-hand 
writer’s notes, the following passages : 

Iwas called upon, a fortnight ago, to reply to the question whether, if any of the 
flesh of the sick animals happened to be sold, it was probable that human beings 
might suffer? I unhesitatingly asserted then, what I repeat now, that the meat is not 
poisonous, and is incapable of injuring human beings. . To that opinion I adhere. 

If I should be asked what regulations should be made by city authorities, in relation 
to the traffic in diseased meat, I have simply to declare, what I have said for many 
years past, viz., that it is impossible to draw a line between health and disease, except 
as the two conditions are known to medical men; and, notwithstanding the apparent 
disadvantages of condemning more meat than there is any necessity for, it is essential 
that a sanitary officer should be supported, on the broad general principle, that a dis- 
eased animal is an animal unfit for human consumption. 

The danger of an abundant supply of animal food, the produce of animals affected 
with Texan fever, has almost passed. Some farmers and shippers have learned 
that it is not safe to send stock to such markets as these, and the action of this, as of 
other boards of health, has no doubt been already beneficial. 

But any system of inspection now to be adopted must almost inevitably fail, if 
directed mainly to the condition of live stock at the Union stock yards. 

It is in the slaughter-houses that a ready means of ascertaining the real condition of 
cattle can be secured; and the recognition of the Texan fever rests in the examination 
specially of the spleen, which is much increased in size, sometimes before animals 
show any external signs of sickness. A medical inspector would likewise detect blood 
extravasations in the internal organs, ulcerations of the stomach, and, as the disease 
advanced, bloody urine; but the most satisfactory sign, for the purpose of meat inspec- 
tions, is the condition of the spleen. The flesh of animals slaughtered, when affected, 
shows no signs of morbid change, so that it is essential to examine the internal organs 
in order to draw conclusions as to the condition of any carcass. 

On the 20th of August we left for St. Louis, Kansas City, ad Abi- 
lene. We met with cases of splenic fever in the first named city; but, 
from the manner in which the Texan droves are segregated while 
awaiting their transfer to the cars at Kansas City, the indigenous stock 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 115 


in that district was found healthy. At Junction City we found a herd 
of sick cattle which had crossed the Texan trails at Salina, having been 
used in the west for draught purposes. We proceeded to Abilene, the 
center of the shipment of Texan steers. It had been confidently 
asserted that the stock, driven by easy stages from Texas through the 
Indian Territory and unsettled lands of Kansas, had communicated no 
disease; but this we found erroneous, as the indigenous stock around 
Abilene had suffered, and herds had just been seized, from among which 
we had ample opportunities for examining such cattle, both alive and 
dead. 

We learned at the Drovers’ Cottage that, scattered along the creeks 
at intervals of four or five miles, large herds of Texan cattle could he 
seen Over a distance of forty or fifty miles. This led us to undertake a 
journey across the prairie, as far down as Big Turkey Creek, near the 
Little Arkansas River; and it is but just that publicity be given to the 
anxiety manifested, and assistance tendered us in our investigations, on 
the part of the gentlemen engaged in the southern trade. Major Call, 
who owned two of the largest herds, zealously undertook the necessary 
arrangements for our journey; and, by this means, we had an opportu- 
nity of examining carefully considerably over fifteen thousand head of 
cattle, which had arrived at their destination during the months of July 
and August. 

In general terms, it may be said that the whole stock indicated how 
much better it is for cattle to be driven slowly, where there is an ample 
supply of food and water, than it is to transport them, even for two or 
three days, in railway cars. There was a difference in ae herds accord- 
ing to the speed they had maintained on the journey, and it appears 
that an average walk of eight miles daily, over the whole journey, is as 
much as the cattle should be subjected to, in order to secure improve- 
ment, rather than deterioration, in their condition. The best drovers 
avoid shouting and the stock-whip; and much depends on the intelli- 
gence of the person who superintends a herd as to the selection of the 
best grazing ground, and searching for a sufficient supply of water. 
The creeks, scattered throughout the whole of the prairie lands of 
Kansas, dry up in sumer, and cattle must sometimes be driven thirty 
or thirty-five miles before water can be found. This israre; but, under 
the most careful management, the driving of cattle from Texas to any 
point on the eastern division of the Union Pacific road at or west of 
Abeline, is attended with some such inconvenience. Nevertheless, 
wherever proper supervision is exercised that the animals may never be 
overheated, it is found that they improve in condition, grow stout and 
hardy, and are in fit state for slaughter at the end of their journey on 
foot. 

Of the stock we examined, two hundred head of Indian cattle, from 
the Chickasaw Nation, were in pasture five miles from Abeline, and all 
appeared in very fine condition. The greater part of the remaining 


116 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


stock we inspected was from northwestern, from central and from east- 
ern Texas. 

The only evidence of suffering was, at first, lameness, which in some 
cases was due to injuries from animals fighting, or spraining themselves 
in getting through difficult places. At times a steer gets lame from the 
long sharp grass, wounding the skin between the hoof; and at other 
points, as on Smoky Hill, the stony surface, with angular fragments of 
iron-stone and other hard and sharp bits of flint, wounds the feet and 
disables a considerable number of cattle. 

On Smoky Hill we found, on the 27th of August, a herd which had 
been collected, from forty to two hundred miles from the coast, in South- 
ern Texas, between the Ist and the 18th of May. They arrived at Smoky 
Hill on the 22d of August. Two animals had died on the route; one 
died after getting lame, and the other refused to eat, was depressed, 
languid, and passed blood with the excreta. At the time of our visit, 
there were twenty or thirty animals which looked gaunt and weak, but 
we were told that they were work-oxen in poor condition. One animal 
was lame and stiff, but was reported as improving in condition. Another 
had died during the night, and we proceeded to examine its internal 
organs. It was a dun Texan steer, four years old, that had been stam- 
peded with others the day before, and shortly afterwards had succumbed. 
The body was still warm, and free from all trace of decomposition. The 
skin and subcutaneous tissues presented no mark of injury or disease. 
The organs of respiration were healthy. The heart, of normal volume 
and consistency, was ecchymosed at its apex, and circumscribed blood 
extravasations dotted the reflection of pericardium over and around the 
pulmonary artery. The right cavities of the heart contained a small 
clot of blood, and the left wereempty. The endocardium was of normal 
color and thickness throughout. The mouth, fauces, pharynx, cesopha- 
gus, and the first three stomachs were healthy. The fourth, or true 
stomach, was reddened over its entire mucous surface. The folds at the 
cardiac end were of a deep red, with numerous petechiz scattered irregu- 
larly over their surface. The petechize were usually dark in the center, 
where the membrane was softening, and of a lighter crimson hue on their 
circumferences. Many were round, and others of irregular shapes, either 
from coalescence of several extravasations or the irregular spreading of 
one original bleeding spot. 

The small intestine, of a reddish or purplish hue externally, was the 
seat of ramified redness, with some petechiz scattered throughout its 
whole extent. Peyer’s glands were healthy. The ileum was, however, 
more congested than the duodenum or jejunum. 

The cecum, somewhat reddened on its entire mucous surface, was 
striped with blood extravasations which had occurred along the promi- 
nent edges of the mucous folds at its fundus, and there were several 
well defined ecchymoses scattered irregularly over the whole lining. The 
color was more or less reddened throughout, until near its termination, 


. 


SE EE eee EE Ol Oe De 


a _ 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. be i 


where it had a natural color. The rectum was not discolored, but near 
the anus there was a small patch with a thin film of coagulated blood 
on its unabraded gurface, and, when the membrane wrinkled by the ac- 
tion of the sphincter, the free margin of the folds was streaked with 
interstitial deposit of blood. The spleen, of a dark purplish color, 
weighed three and a half pounds, and its structure was soft and friable. 

The liver was of normal size and color, but the gall bladder appeared 
thickened from an exudation of yellow serum in the substance of its 
coats. These appeared three or four times their normal thickness. The 
small arteries and veins of the mucous membrane were much distended 
with dark blood, and there was also some capillary congestion. 

The kidneys were healthy. , The bladder was moderately distended by 
clear-colored urine, but its mucous surface, reddened at the fundus, was 
dotted with small petechiz of a vermilion hue at and around the neck 
of the organ. 

Failing to obtain further evidence of splenic fever in this and an ad- 
joining herd, from a careful inspection of the animals, I determined on 
having some of them caught and examined with a self-registering ther- 
mometer. Four steers, caught with a lasso, indicated a temperature of 
103.4°, 102.49, 103°, and 104.29. This indicated a somewhat exalted 
temperature for animals which to all appearances were in health; and I 

ras fortunate in getting an animal that had been used in a wagon driven 
quietly to camp, and then examined. This indicated a temperature of 
103° Fahrenheit. My conviction that the lasso would not vary the 
temperature was thus confirmed, and it is hard to reconcile the observa- 
tions made with perfect freedom from disease. 

_The inspections of herds grazed on and near the Santa Fé road, and 
inquiries among drovers and herders, failed to bring to light any other 
cases of sickness or death; and the evidence of Texan cattle suffering 
from splenic fever, so far as our observations in Kansas go, rested on the 
very marked case examined at Smoky Hill, on the high temperature 
manifested by animals in the undoubtedly infected herd, and on the ob- 
servations as to the relative weights of spleens in healthy and sick cattle, 
reported in the foregoing pages. 

Notwithstanding, however, the favorable report which can be made 
regarding the general appearance of southern herds, it is proved by the 
experiences of past years, and of this, that they disseminate disease 
among cattle north or west of the Gulf States. The impression was left 
on my mind, after the first observations of the malady, that the Texan 
steers might be found to communicate the disease only for a limited time 
after leaving Texas. There is reason to believe that such is the case, 
though we found that two months’ journey, from Texas to the Union 
Pacific road, had not sufficed to effect this object. Experiments on this 
point would be desirable, though expensive, and demanding much time 
and attention. We were told, however, that the cattle which had in- 
duced so much disease at Farina, on being removed to Loda, were placed 


118 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


on lands which brought them in contact with Hlinois cattle, and no bad 
results ensued. Mr. Robert Clark, of Indianola, who has had great ex- 
perience in driving cattle through Missouri into Hlinois, states it as his 
decided opinion, from repeated observation and inquiries among drovers, 
that the Texan steers are most dangerous immediately after leaving 
Texas, and hence the great opposition to their importation into Missouri; 
but that, after they have traveled a long distance, they were far less 
liable to do any mischief. This point is of great importance in relation 
to means which might be suggested for the prevention of the disease, 
and it is worthy of note that, without doubt, cattle driven into Kansas, 
Missouri, or other States, in the summer or autumn of one year, grazed 
in such State during the winter, fail to retain any deleterious principle, 
and can readily be intermixed with any stock during the winter and 
spring. Texan herds, therefore, do purify themselves; and the point of 
greatest importance in relation to the traffic in such stock is to establish, 
without doubt, what length of time is required for such purification, and 
if means can be adopted to accelerate so desirable a result. 


NON-TRANSMISSION OF THE DISEASE BY NORTHERN OR BY WESTERN 
STOCK. 


During the three months last summer, too many well-marked cases 
have been seen of communications of splenic fever to Illinois and to Indi- 
ana cattle. At first these animals were allowed to die; but, as soon as 
large herds of grazing stock were attacked, an effort was made to save 
what could be saved, by shipping and sending to eastern markets. Cat- 
tle trucks have thus been filled in large numbers with infected steers, 
and they have died or been slaughtered and committed to the rendering 
tanks. But not a single case has transpired to show that these animals 
have induced, directly or indirectly, any disease in the stock of Eastern 
States. How different from this is the working of a contagious disease ! 
Had any malady of the nature of rinderpest or lung plague been favored 
in its transmission, as this one has been, the farmers of Ohio, Pennsyl- 
vania, and New York would have similar bitter experiences to record, 
to those of the much-injured Illinois farmers. That which is obvious, 
in relation to the progress of the disease through the country, is also 
apparent in any district invaded by the disease. None but southern cat- 
tle communicate disease, and they rarely if ever do any mischief through 
stock yards and cattle cars, and only by feeding on pastures over which 
other stock is apt to roam and feed. No case has been brought forward 
to show that a railway car, loaded with Texans, will communicate dis- 
ease to other stock afterward placed in such car. Numerous instances 
of this description would have come to light, had we been dealing with 
what is commonly understood as a contagious plague. 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER: OF CATTLE. 119 


COMMUNICATION IN STOCK YARDS. 


The earlier reports from Cairo stated that the cows in that city had 
caught the disease from the Texan cattle in steamboat and railway pens. 
Indeed we were informed that many of the Cairo cows had been in the 
habit of wandering not only near, but into, the cattle pens, and eating 
the hay the Texans left behind them. This is the only observation that 
would give color to the view that hay might be a means of propagating — 
the disorder. But we learned, at Cairo, that Texan cattle had been 
loose on the common within the levee, and some stray animals had 
remained for some days on the very prairie which is the only pasture 
for the cattle of the town. It was impossible to find a single case which 
afforded reliable grounds for supposing that the only chance for con- 
tamination was in the cattle pens of Cairo. ee 

It may be suggested that eating hay which has been poisoned, must 
be as bad as eating prairie grass over which Texan steers have wandered. 
But there is this difference, that cattle are not apt to eat hay on which 
the excretions of other cattle have been deposited, and they would 
attempt to pick up only the clean fodder. On grass lands the growth of 
grass, and the washings of the pasture by rains, clear off the filth, 
though they may often leave adhering deleterious principles which are 
swallowed. <A good illustration of this is afforded by the dissemination 
of tapeworm, the ova of whichare distributed with the excrement of dogs 
and other carnivora; and, while the fieces are washed away, the ova 
adhere to blades of grass, and develop in the systems of cattle and 
sheep. 

I would not wish to be understood that I consider it improbable that 
hay may, under some circumstances, be poisoned by Texan steers, and 
afterwards give disease to other stock; but, as yet, no facts prove that 
such has been the case. On the contrary, the most reliable, though 
accidental experiment, is afforded by cattle fed by Mr. Sherman, of the 
Union stock yards, Chicago. He has thirty-five cows which have grazed 
all summer, elose up to the cattle pens, where thousands of southern 
steers have been inclosed, without intermission. Of these cows the 
majority have been purchased out of the yards at different times, some - 
last spring, and some have been in the cattle pens with Texan droves. 
On the occasion of my visit to the yards, I have also seen a Texan calf 
placed with the cows; and yet no animals could be in better health than 
those in Mr. Sherman’s dairy. 

This suggestive case proves, in the most incontrovertible manner, that 
western cattle can be mingled with Texans in stock yards, can graze 
side by side with Texans, if separated by a fence, and cows can suckle 
the Texan calves, without becoming affected with splenic fever. I am 
not prepared to say that any of the cows purchased by Mr. Sherman 
were fed on hay in the yards, while they were in the same pen with the 
Texans, but in all probability they were. 

This point has acquired some importance since the British govern- 


120 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


ment prohibited the importation of hay from the United. States. <Act- 
ing on the side of prudence, with the limited information that could 
necessarily have been at its disposal when that order was issued, and 
in view of the losses by contagious diseases which have become chronic 
in the British Isles, it was in all probability the only course that could 
have been adopted. But it may be well to state, for future guidance, 
that it is not possible for bales of hay shipped to Europe to carry the 
splenic fever. For years to come, the open prairie lands, on which we 
have witnessed the dissemination of the disease, cannot yield hay for 
the markets of America. That hay is produced in the Eastern and the 
Western States, in localities where Texan cattle never have been, and 
probably never will be, grazed; and, moreover, in the fields mown for 
hay, cattle are not pastured. 

The larger tracts of country on which southern droves feed are likely 
to remain unsettled for years to come, and neither scythe nor sickle has 
ever reached them. England is as likely to get rinderpest as splenic 
fever from America; and the only way in which it might see the latter 
would be by transporting herds of Gulf-coast cattle across the Atlantic, 
to feed on British pasture lands, side by side with British stock. 


SEASONS. 


The influence of seasons on the development of splenic fever is most 
marked. A few nipping frosts check its ravages anywhere and every- 
where. In Missouri and Kansas it has broken out as late as October 
and December. Thus, in the report of the Department of Agriculture 
for 1867, it was stated from Christian County, Missouri, that, in 1866, 
‘¢ Spanish fever was introduced into the western part of this county by 
droves of Texas cattle, passing in October.” From Woodson County, 
Kansas, it was reported thatthe “Spanish fever broke out in December, - 
and raged until the 1st of January, when the cold weather set in and 
checked it.” The droves of Texan cattle, which communicated the dis- 
ease during the summer, leave Texas by the close of winter; so that the 
Texan winter in no way interferes with the development of that state of 
system which renders Texas herds so dangerous. 

In a case reported too vaguely to be of real value, in the report of 
the Department of Agriculture for 1867, we are informed that, in Doug- 
las County, Kansas, “the Spanish fever, or something similar, made its 
appearance, about the Ist of February, among a few cattle that were 
driven from the south.” In all probability this was not splenic fever ; 
and the reporter adds: “I think the severity of the winter caused the 
greatest loss; about one-third of all the cattle brought from the south 
have died.” It is certain that, in States north of Missouri and Kansas, 
splenic fever prevails in the months of June, July, August, and Septem- 
ber. Straggling cases may occur in May and in October; but the great 
losses are observed during the four months just named. 

Does this depend on the influence of heat and drought, or on the acei- 
dental circumstances that Texan cattle have been mainly distributed 


‘SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 121 


over the country during these months? The second is the main reason; 
but it is impossible for me to reconcile many observations which I have 
made with the idea that heat does not favor the development of the dis- 
order. It is not sufficient to name it, but it is asserted by practical men 
that Texan cattle can be handled most safely when the suminers are wet 
and cool. The wet may wash the grasses, but the cold seems to favor a 
constitutional resistance to the attacks of the disease. <A record of the 
cases which demonstrate that Texan cattle can be freely placed with 
western stock in winter would fill a volume. At Brondlands, Hickory 
Grove, near Champaign, and in a host of other places, southern cattle, 
purchased last fall, were placed with indigenous stock, have remained 
with them ever since, and induced no disease. This is very generally 
known and admitted. A reporter from Cedar County, Missouri, writing 
in 1866, said: ‘It is thought that our cattle would not take the disease 
in the winter season, but this may only be conjecture, as no large droves 
have yet been driven here from the south in the winter.” Of late years, 
however, there has been an effort to drive from Texas for the October 
and November markets, and we have not heard of a single case where 
stock-drivers, up at that time, had done any mischief in [ilinois and 
Indiana. Nipping frosts may and do kill the disease, by destroying the 
pasture, and compelling people to feed their cattle. This completely 
arrests that method of transmission, which I believe to be the main or 
only one. As soon as western stock is deprived of the pasture on which 
Texans have been fed, they are safe; and this is an unanswerable argu- 
ment in favor of the views I have promulgated since the time of mny first 
observations. It is not the breath, nor the saliva, nor cutaneous emana- 
tions, which are charged with the poisonous pireaes but the feces and 
the urine. 

It has, however, been very generally remarked that Texan cattle are 
covered with the tick. I owe to the kindness of C. V. Riley, esq., State 
Entomologist in St. Louis, a drawing of the _ as found on Texas cat- 
tle. In the annexed engraving is an upper Gate 
and an under view. As the legs do not 4) 
alter in size in proportion to the body, a 
view has been given of a smaller specimen Wiig) herein 
between thetwo. This tick belongs to the if Fig. 18. 
arachnide, subdivision tracheariz, and family ixodidé. It has eight 
fine, jointed legs. It is not confined to cattle in the south, and is seen 
in many woodland pastures of the United States. For convehience, 
and to distinguish this species from ixodes reticulatus, | propose to call 
it ixvodes indentatus, from the peculiar indentations on the body and 
absence of stripes. These ticks pass to the bodies of native cattle, and 
breed. The young ticks are distributed in myriads on the grasses, and 
it has been supposed that the grasses are thus poisoned.* 


*For the scientific description of this insect see Mr. Riley’s remarks on the Ixodes 
Bovis, p. 152. 


122 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


The “tick theory” has acquired quite a renown during the past sum- 
mer; but a little thought should have satisfied any one of the absurdity 
of the idea. In the first place, ticks are not easily fenced on a piece of 
land, by a wood fence, as cattle are. A wood fence sufficiently isolates 
cattle to prevent splenic fever. 

Secondly. We have seen Texan cattle without ticks; and such cattle, 
and also dead western, quite free from these parasites. There has been 
no relation whatever between the abundance of ticks and the severity of 
the disorder. The malady has been quite as malignant where few or no 
ticks occurred. 

Thirdly. We have been asked to watch for the irritating parasites in 
the stomach and intestines, as it was believed that they acted mechan- 
ically; but we have never seen a tick during any stage of its develop- 
ment in the alimentary canal. . 

Lastly. The tick is not confined to Gulf-coast cattle, which we know 
communicate this disease; but it is met with in various parts of the 
States where cattle are reared that never cause splenic fever. Why 
should the ticks not communicate the malady from western cattle to 
other cattle, if they can induce it by crawling from the Texan to western 
stock? Many erroneous views as to the origin and propagation of the 
Texan fever may be set at rest by showing what it is not; and for this 
reason I shall proceed at once to discuss the analogies and differences 
between splenic fever and other disorders afflicting cattle, and even the 
human species. 


THE NATURE OF SPLENIC FEVER. 


The history of splenic fever would seem to indicate its complete isola- 
tion from every disease, and especially every form of plague hitherto 
described. But a careful study of its progress and development, with 
the light afforded by a knowledge of other cattle diseases, enables us to 
demonstrate points of great resemblance, and indeed of identity with 
maladies which annually recur in various parts of the world. It is, 
moreover, important, in a practical point of view, to show how it differs 
‘ from maladies which spread from country to country, and from the east 
westward, devastating broad tracts of land, and calling for the most 
decisive and energetic means for their suppression. 

Splenic fever is not an epizoétie, propery so called. It is not propa- 
gated through time and space by contagion. The true plague of ani- 
mals, or epizodties, such as the Russian murrain or rinderpest, the lung 
plague or contagious pleuro-pneumonia of cattle, the foot and the mouth 
diseases of all warm-blooded animals, variolus fevers, hydrophobia, and 
the like, spread by direct or indirect transference of an animal poison, a 
virus, from sick to healthy animals; and the sick, as a rule, indicate, by 
very manifest outward symptoms, in the old world the disease under 
which they are laboring. The poisons take effect without regard to sea- 
sons, and are alike developed in the systems of sick animals. It is not 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 123 


contact between Texan and southern or western cattle that induces the 
malady; and, so far as recorded observations and my own inquiries at 
present extend, the animals contaminated by feeding on Texan trails 
have not in a single instance propagated the disease to other animals. 
Indeed, I have not met with one instance where sucking calves have 
eaught the affection from their dams, or from other cows which they 
have been made to suck. Many cases have come under my observation 
of cattle in Dlinois, Indiana, and elsewhere, coming in contact with 
Texans through a fence, by drinking in the same water, and even being 
housed in sheds with sick natives, and yet escaping the disease. We 
must, therefore, distinguish it from the contagious maladies alluded to, 
and refer it to another group. 

Splenic fever is an enzoétic. It originates in various parts of the 
Gulf States. Florida cattle driven north are as dangerous as Texans, 
deriving the same deleterious properties from the soil on which they are 
reared, and in all probability the vegetations on which they feed. In 
the south, splenic fever is distinctly indigenous, and, so far as Texas is 
concerned, I have satisfied myself that the disease is universally preva- 
lent in that State. 

Its complete manifestation is readily witnessed in States north of 
34° north latitude. Here the malady can no longer be declared 
indigenous; but there are numerous instances which can be cited, of 
purely enzodtic diseases spreading a certain distance by contagion. Two 
of the most marked instances are furnished us by the malignant anthrax 
of Russia, better known as the Siberian boil plague, and the milk-sick- 
ness, or trembles, of the United States. 

The milk-sickness is due to cattle feeding on low woodland pastures, 
where certain poisonous plants abound. It originates only in a very 
limited area of country; but the animals may travel, and their flesh and 
milk will communicate the disease when eaten by other animals, and 
even by human beings. Trembles is, therefore, an enzodtic disorder, 
capable of being primarily produced only in definite localties; but the 
poison which contaminates the food is capable, through that food, of 
attacking.a second and a third animal, or as many as partake of it. 
There is another striking similarity between the course of milk-sickness 
and splenic fever. The animal food, poisoned in the disease-producing 
district, may show no signs of disease, unless subjected to a definite 
existing cause, such as being driven or frightened. In classifying 
trembles among the diseases of the lower animals we should undoubt- 
edly place it among the effects of vegetable poisons, and study it as 
a very remarkable toxicological phenomenon. I should be disposed. 
to deal with splenic fever in the same way. Southern cattle, accustomed 
to feed on certain pastures in Florida and Texas, thrive, and their sys- 
tems become charged with principles which are thrown off in the excre- 
tions for many weeks, and probably two or three months after they leave 
their native soil. Herds of these animals necessarily deposit a large 


124. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


amount of whatever they excrete; and thus pastures are contaminated, 
the grasses of which prove deadly poisons to healthy and susceptible 
cattle. It is certain that the feeding of cattle on the land over which 
Texan animals hive passed is the ordinary, and probably invariable, 
cause of splenic fever. 

The circumstances under which the disease manifests itself tend to 
favor the view that it is allied to the numerous forms of anthrax fever, 
which prevail very generally in hot countries, and usually in low lands. 
These diseases, it is true, are scattered throughout the temperate zone ; 
but their development depends upon heat, wherever it appears on stiff, 
retentive soils; and in some sandy but fertile lands, their ravages are 
especially witnessed during wet seasons. Heat favors and creates the 
manifestations of splenic fever. The malady springs in a warm country, 
and is propagated most readily with heat and drought. It is indigenous 
where vegetation is rank, and the soil charged with an excess of organic 
life, which, for want of direction, tends to waste and mischief. During 
the hot summer months, anthrax or carbuncular fevers force the stock- 
owners of Southern Europe to seek the hills with their flocks of sheep 
and goats; and to disregard this injunction implies, not only the death 
of their animals, but the destruction of other warm-blooded creatures, 
including man himself, by malignant pustule. To this category undoubt- 
edly belonged the various pests of old; and, by traveling northward, 
the virulence of these diseases, the development of the anthrax poison, 
and the propagation under any circumstances, by contagion, diminish 
by simple and imperceptible gradations, and ultimately cease. The 
black water of Great Britain and of America is one of the forms of this 
deadly anthrax, which, even so far north as Aberdeen, in Scotland, has 
been communicated, by the flesh eaten, to a whole family of human 
beings, who succumbed from malignant pustule. The Siberian boil plague 
is one of the typical forms of anthrax, and its history in relation to 
splenic fever is interesting, inasmuch as it occurs in a vast country, 
where stock is driven in masses from the east westward; and an oppor- 
tunity is thus afforded for contagious transmission, which is not often 
witnessed elsewhere. 

Many so-called blood diseases, all enzoétic in their nature, and capable 
of limited transmission, are classified, by the ablest veterinary patholo- 
gists of France and Germany, with the anthrax fevers. In Germany 
the most destructive forms are so often characterized by enlargement, 
softening, and even rupture of the spleen, that the forms of anthrax are 
included under a generic term, “‘Milzbrand.” The condition of the spleen 
in splenic fever would induce many a pathologist to classify it unhesita- 
tingly among the forms of “‘Milzbrand.” But there is a line of demarea- 
tion which, in my opinion, can be fairly established. 

Southern cattle, capable of propagating this disease, usually start 
from their homes in the winter, or early in spring. They do not die, as 
is always the case where anthrax originates, in large numbers so as to 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 125 


attract decided attention, on the lands which foster the development of 
that subtle poison they carry northward. Their systems are not charged 
with an inoculable virus, such as the anthrax poison always is, when 
there is a sufficient heat to develop it. The heat, during the summer of 
1868, was higher than is usually required for the production of the 
anthrax virus. The best and fattest animals in a herd are the first to 
die of anthrax, and death is sudden, unexpected; and an animal in the 
apparent enjoyment of health at night is dead before morning, or seen 
well in the morning and found dead by noon. French authors speak of 
their dying “dune apoplexie fulminante.” Had the cattle which have 
been slaughtered as human food, during the past summer, in Chicago 
and elsewhere, been tainted with a true anthrax, as they have been with 
splenic fever, medical reports would have developed many instances of 
malignant pustule in man, which they have not done. With the ther- 
mometer at 108° or 110° such a result was inevitable. 

There is one disease in Europe, which prevails in various parts of the 
United Kingdom, and is common on woodland pastures during the 
spring and summer months, which presents most of the characteristics 
of splenic fever. It is the black-water enzodtic hematuria, or bloody 
urine, which on the banks of the Dee, in Aberdeenshire, is termed the 
“darn.” The Germans call it “ Blutharnen,” “ Rotharnen,” “‘ Maiseuche,” 
““Weidebruch,” and speak of it as an enzodtic occurring in spring and 
summer among “grazing” cattle. It is described as characterized by 
bloody urine, and weakness of gait in hind quarters, associated, in some 
cases, with intense fever; and in others with the weakness of anemia, 
or the bloodless state. There is sometimes discharge of a little blood 
‘with the feces. There is occasionally diarrhea, but more commonly 
the excrement is nearly of normal character. .After death the bladder 
is found distended with bloody urine, the kidneys are dark colored, and 
their pelves distended with similar urine; the blood is dark, the liver 
usually light colored; but the spleen congested, and of a dark color; 
and there are blood extravasations on the mucous and the serous mem- 
brane. Indeed, Spinola speaks of the fourth stomach, and even the 
intestines, as very inflamed. It is important and instructive to notice 
the circumstances under which enzodtic hematuria occurs in Great 
Britain, and other parts of Europe. Since the introduction of turnip 
husbandry, a malady has arisen among cows, which is usually known as 
“red water,” after calving, due to the condition of turnips grown on 
ill-drained lands. In 1856 I was engaged in investigating the diseases 
of Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire, for the Highland and Agricultural 
Society of Scotland. I then distinctly ascertained that tracts of land 
of the same character, and adjoining one another, grew turnips capable 
or incapable of producing the disease, according to the state of drainage. 
Indeed, farmers whose lands were well cultivated were sometimes sur- 
rounded by poor people, growing turnips on small plats, or so-called 
‘““pendules,” of the same lands, but without the advantages of good 


126 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


drainage. The farmers’ cows were healthy; whereas those fed on the 
poor people’s crops suffered from “red water,” after calving. This isa 
distinct form of enzodtic hematuria, due apparently to some modifica- 
tions in the character of a root, grown on damp and retentive soils. It 
is, therefore, proved that the conditions of soil may injuriously affect 
domestic animals, and produce a definite and distinct disease, through 
foods that are usually wholesome. But the enzodtic hematuria which 
does not depend on a root crop, and which attacks steers, heifers, preg- 
nant and even calving cows, has usually been ascribed, like the milk- 
sickness of Illinois, to some definite poison; and the singular manifesta- 
tions of the disease, as it travels from Texas, would give weight to such 
an opinion. The “darn” of Aberdeenshire was supposed at one time to 
be due to a harmless, wild anemone, and afterward to the “darnel 
grass,” or Lolium temulentum; but the opinion which I formed on the 
spot was, that the cattle died from eating the young shoots of oaks, 
and other astringent plants. 

Medical men have had their attention directed to this subject during 
the past summer; and, in some instances, they have referred to it as a 
malignant typhus or typhoid fever. It is widely different from both in 
its origin, development, and progress. The morbid lesions, so far as 
blood extravasations are concerned, might suggest an analogy to typhus; 
but this is not the only disease associated with blood changes and 
petechie. Who ever saw a spontaneous development of malignant 
typhus on the healthy, open prairies of this country, even in man? If 
it be typhus, how is it that it is not contagious, and certainly not infee- 
tious? If typhus, why do the sick western steers not communicate it as 
readily as the Texans? Itis assuredly neither typhus nor typhoid fever; 
and its origin, in the causes which we have reason to believe operate 
most in its production in the south, approaches ague more closely than 
any other disorder. Splenic fever is not an intermittent or remittent 
disease; but it probably manifests itself spontaneously in districts, such 
as are commonly invaded by malaria, and this is what we see constantly 
in relation to the enzodtic diseases of animals, and especially those in 
which the spleen has a tendency to congestion, hemorrhage, and enlarge- 
ment. 

There is really no analogue in man, so far as our observations extend; 
and, in stating that the circumstances of its development are more like 
the reputed results of malarious intoxication, it must not be thought 
that we believe in the commonly accepted, but very vague and unsatis- 
factory, notions as to the nature of malaria. The conclusions, therefore, 
which | am disposed to draw from all the facts and arguments, adduced 
in relation to the causes and nature of splenic fever, are— 

First. That southern cattle, especially from the Gulf coast, are affected 
with a latent or an apparent form of the disease. 

Secondly. That they become affected in consequence of the nature of 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 127 


the soil and vegetation on which they are fed, and the water which they 
drink. 

Thirdly. That their systems are charged with poisonous principles 
which accumulate in the bodies of acclimatized animals that enjoy an 
immunity. 

Fourthly. That southern cattle may be driven so that they improve 
in condition; and yet for some weeks, and probably not less than three 
months, they keep excreting the deleterious principles which poison the 
cattle of the States through which the herds are driven, on their way 
north or west. 

Fifthly. That all breeds of cattle in States north of those on the Gulf 
coast, without regard to age or sex, if they feed on grass contaminated 
by southern droves, are attacked by the splenic fever; that the disease 
may be, but is very rarely, propagated through the feeding of hay. 

Sixthly. That the disease occurs mainly during the hot months of 
Summer and autumn and never after the wild grasses have been killed 
by frosts, until the mild weather in spring returns; that then the grasses 
are healthy, and continue healthy, unless fresh droves of Texan or of 
Florida cattle are driven over the land. 

Seventhly. That heat and drought aggravate the disease in individual 
animals. 

Highthly. That there is not the slightest foundation for the view that 
the ticks disseminate the disease. 

Ninthly. That the splenic fever does not belong to that vast and 
deadly group of purely contagious and infectious diseases of which the 
rinderpest, the lung plague, and eruptive fevers are typical. 

Tenthly. That it is an enzootic, due to local influences, capable of only 
a limited spread, and analogous or identical with the black water of 
various parts of Europe. 

Eleventhly. That, however warm the weather may be, cattle affected 
with splenic fever have not developed in their systems any poison like 
the anthrax poison; and that the flesh, blood, and other tissues of 
animals are incapable of inducing any disease in man or animals. 

Twelfthly. That splenic fever is not malignant typhus or typhoid fever. 
That it has no analogue among human diseases, but is, however, devel- 
oped under conditions which prevail where the so-called malaria injuri- 
ously affects the human health. 


CURATIVE TREATMENT. 


The great majority of epizodtic and enzodtic diseases never can, and 
never will, be arrested by the medical treatment of the sick. Even the 
benignantepizodtic aphthe, which is rarely fatal, spreads rapidly through 
a country ; and, in the long run, owing to the certainty and rapidity of 
its transmission, entails more loss than some of the most fatal diseases. 
Splenic fever may be classed among the incurable maladies, inasmuch 
as we know of no antidote to the mysterious poison inducing it; and, 


128 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


while we can alleviate some of the sufferings of the affected cattle, a 
very trifling measure of success attends the most assiduous nursing and 
medication. Bleeding has been, in some parts, a favorite remedy; and 
I have known one animal recover, either in consequence or in spite of 
the remedy. Purgatives have been freely and fairly tried, with good 
result in very few instances, and with depressing and killing influences 
in many more. 

The ‘“‘red water” of cows in Scotland is often cured by opiates, which 
check the discharge of blood; and with alcoholic stimulants in modera- 
tion, with the free use of mucilaginous drinks. Ihave tried the same 
treatment in splenic fever, with little or no success. Page after page 
might be filled with notes on the administration of nitrate and of chlo- 
rate of potash, iodide of potassium, quinine, salts of iron, sesquicarbo- 
nate of ammonia, Epsom or Glauber’s salts, sulphur, ginger, calomel, 
soap, and oil; and even guano from the goose cote has been said “ fre- 
quently to effect a cure, given in doses of one quart, until a thorough 
evacuation is produced.” A reporter from Woodson County, Kansas, 
says this is “a sovereign and unfailing remedy for the dry murrain.” 
None of these agents (and some have been extolled as specific) have 
affected the steady progress and fatality of the disease. 

Shelter, protection from flies, linseed or flaxseed tea, friction of the 
limbs, and injections, are humane, and, to a trifling extent, useful expe- 
dients. I have seen cows return to nearly their full quantity of milk on 
such treatment, with the aid of half-ounce doses of sulphuric ether, in 
four ounces of the solution of the acetate of ammonia and a quart of 
water, given thrice daily. Relief has been afforded by giving an ounce 
of tincture of opium for the first day or two; but to enter further into 
the history of experiments on this point is to recount a history of failures 
such as the worldis accustomed to, in speaking of the medical treatment 
of human cholera and small-pox, or rinderpest and the deadly forms of 
anthrax in cattle. 


THE PREVENTION OF SPLENIC FEVER. 


The main object of the investigation which has brought to light the 
facts noted in the foregoing pages, has been the discovery of means 
whereby the direct and the indirect losses sustained for several years 
past, but especially in 1868, may not again harass American farmers, 
and injure the traders in Texan cattle. Hitherto the only measures sug- 
gested, and very partially adopted, have consisted either in prohibiting 
the importation of southern cattle into certain States, or portions of 
States; and, in one instance, in preventing, Beet introduction only dur- 
ing the summer months. 

Stringent lawshave failed to avert the most disastrous and wide-spread 
losses; and while on the one hand persons interested in the Texan trade 
have justified their inattention to legal restrictions, by declaring them 
one and all unconstitutional, instances have not been wanting of mob 


® 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 129 


law adopting its own expedients. Dealers and farmers who owned 
southern cattle have been threatened, they have been pounced on in the 
dead of night, that they might surely be found in their homes; and 
there and then they have been. requested to attend meetings of indig- 
nant and impoverished neighbors. Lastly the stampeding and shooting 
of Texan cattle, whenever and wherever they might be seen, have been 
the mild alternatives which seem to have satisfied a thirst for revenge ; 
or in some instances human life would, in all probability, have been sac- 
rificed. Indeed, threats have been numerous, and heavy bonds or the 
actual payment of cash for dead, dying, and infected stock, have alone 
saved the persons of traders, commission agents, and farmers, who hap- 
pened to have any dealings in long-horned beeves. The prevention of 
splenic fever, therefore, implies in many instances the prevention of law- 
lessness, and the preservation of the public peace. 

We have seen that splenic fever is a malady indigenous to Texas. It 
is there an enzootic, and whatever may be the plant or plants inducing 
the disorder, it is indisputable that the conditions prevail there which 
are rife in all parts of the world where enzootic blood diseases, fatal 
parasitic maladies, and periodic outbreaks of mysterious affections, which 
aunihilate herds and even depopulate districts, occasionally predomi- 
nate. 

The extirpation of noxious. plants, the purification of streams, the 
equalization of the balance between animal and plant life on a given 
extent of soil, are agricultural problems which cannot, in Texas, be 
solved for generations to come. Thorough drainage, breaking up pas- 
ture lands, fencing off low wood lands which are crammed with a disease- 
producing vegetation, are measures neglected in Great Britain, which 
will tax the industry and capital of many of the sons and grandsons of 
the present race of farmers, north, east, and west, in the United States; 
and how much longer must not the exuberant soil of Texas wait for the 
hands and the brains engaged in making two blades of grass grow where 
there was once but one? Fertile, and reeking with the decay of excess 
as it is, we cannot anticipate the time when it will be so densely 
peopled as to secure attention to definite sanitary laws which, if not 
impracticable under the circumstances, might be applied for the preven- 
tion of splenic fever in Texas, Florida, or wherever else it may be dis- 
covered to exist as an enzootic. 

The question next presents itself whether the trade in live cattle 
between the south and the north is to be permitted. Its annihilation 
would effectually prevent such outbreaks as I have had occasion to study; 
but such an expedient, though it might commend itself to some short- 
sighted farmers in Illinois and Indiana, would not be tolerated. It is 
true that, notwithstanding all the difficulties experienced in the past, 
wherever attempts have been made in the south to slaughter, and con- 
sign their animal produce to northern and other markets, the time will . 
arrive, in all probability, for some such outlet to be secured. But, with 

9 


130 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


beef at twenty, twenty-five, or thirty cents per pound in Philadelphia, 
New York, and Boston, with the packing interests of Chicago, and the 
demands of Europe, especially in times of war, it is idle to contemplate 
the fencing in of steers, which may be purchased by thousands and 
tens of thousands at eight or ten dollars ahead in Texas. The prairie 
lands of States favored by geographical position, and nearest the great cen- 
ters of consumption for all animal produce, cannot be utilized for some 
time to come, without the advantage of supplying foodforstock bred at 
a little cost elsewhere. 

To suit a northern trade, the Texan will doubtless attend to crossing 
his cattle with short-horned blood; and this, while it will encourage the 
purchase of such animals by the farmers of Missouri, [linois, and Indi- 
ana, will in no way tend to modify splenic fever. Fortunately for all, 
it is possible to establish rules which, if intelligently attended to, will 
effectually protect any susceptible animal from destruction by contact 
with members of its own race from the Gulf States. All these rules 
must aim at a complete isolation for a sufficient period of time. 

With our present state of knowledge, it is imperative that we should 
deal with all cattle from the Gulf States in the same way. But 
numerous observations warrant us in believing that a careful study 


of the geographical distributions of the splenic fever in the south 


would indicate that there are broad tracts of land in Texas where the 
stock is free from all contamination, and may, in all probability, be 
freely mixed with cattle in any part of the States. It would not be safe 
to indicate the regions supposed to be healthy, inasmuch as they may 
be more or less intersected by plague-stricken spots; but it is safe to 
assert that the most decided and best ascertained manifestations of dis- 
ease, and capability of communicating disease, have been observed 
among herds derived from and near the Gulf coast. 

That the hardships and privations to which Gulf-coast cattle are 
subjected in being transported to New Orleans, and up the Mississippi 
in steamers, may act as existing causes to the full development of fatal 
symptoms, is probable; but such and similar prejudicial influences 
do not, and cannot, engender the disease. They may facilitate intelli- 
gent observations; and a competent veterinarian, inspecting the dead 
and injured cattle taken into the port of New Orleans, or landed at 
Cairo, might add very largely to our store of knowledge on this and 
allied subjects. Such inspection might be of value in securing the 
isolation of badly infected herds, inasmuch as ordinary observers have 
noticed, where opportunities were afforded for seeing many herds from 
the Gulf Coast, that some were apparently sound, and others numbered 
many sick and dying animals. Wherever such cattle are landed, there 
should be a sufficient amount of closely fenced land, beyond which the 
cattle should not be permitted to pass on foot. They might be trans- 
_ ported thence by rail, but only to definite points for immediate slaughter, 


——— 


———— 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 131 


or to certain stations on railroad lands, where they can be placed alone, 
and without coming in contact with other cattle. 

There are serious impediments in the way, which may prevent the 
adoption of the last suggestion; but, having stated the principles which 
should govern legislation in this matter, we must leave the practical 
working of any well-matured scheme to those whose interests are at 
stake. Thus, if the stock taken from the cars at Tolono (and which 
destroyed almost every cow owned there) by the inhabitants had been 
unloaded in inclosed yards at a distance from the town, and then driven 
through a fenced road on which no other cattle were permitted to pass, 
they would have caused no loss. It must be left to local authorities to 
state whence, when, and how such stock shall be driven to secure such 
isolation; and it will probably be found most practicable, under such 
circumstances, to limit the traveling of Texan cattle on foot to the 
winter season when the grasses are withered and the local stock is 
tended at home. Indeed, if a definite tract of prairie ground is devoted 
anywhere to the Texan trade, the conditions required for the prevention 
of splenic fever consist in the people keeping their cattle on their own 
inclosed farms, or in well-fenced yards and feeding sheds. 

A visit to the far west will convince any impartial person that judg- 
ment and enterprise can be exercised with a certainty of success in 
enabling Texan drovers to drive to points on the Union Pacific road, 
eastern division, where they can do no harm. Traveling north from 
Texas through the Indian Nation into Western Kansas can inflict no 
injury. With the completion of the Union Pacific road to San Fran- 
cisco, it is not improbable that drovers may find it to their advantage 
to drive further than they usually do now, and make for other stations; 
but, whatever course they adopt in this respect, they can safely relieve 
the overstocked State of Texas by utilizing the vast prairies of the west 
in their important trade. 

The question to settle is whether they should travel earlier in the 
Season or later. It is my opinion that, if they wish to hear no more of 
splenic fever, they should reach Western Kansas in the summer or in 
early autumn, keeping their stock fresh on the abundant grasses, and 
shipping it east when the packing season commences, about the middle 
of October. An experiment on a large scale has been made by Messrs. 
McCoy Brothers, at Abilene. This spot on the eastern division of the 
Union Pacific road was selected as the most isolated, and it is situated 
within four hundred miles of the Texan frontier, and one hundred and 
sixty-three miles west from the State line. 

It is east of the sixth meridian, which is the line established by the 
laws of Kansas as the limit over which Texan cattle shall not pass; but, by 
common consent, the advantages offered by this spot have been hitherto 
secured to the Texan trade. The yards were completed by the 5th of 
September, 1867, and from that time to the close of the season, one 
thousand car loads of cattle were shipped east from Abilene. The trade, 


132 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


therefore, began late, the season was wet, and the Texas fever gave no 
concern. 

This year, however, large herds were collected early in the spring in 
Texas, and the first car load of cattle left Abilene on the 10th of June. 

The people of the new town and its neighborhood had accumulated 
more live stock than they had last year, and, without taking the precau- 
tion which could readily have been adopted, permitted their cattle to go 
over the ground traversed by Texans, and black water appeared among 
them. 

It is evident that, as the property of a very large and important town 
may be founded on this very traffic, precautionary measures should be 
adopted for the isolation of the local stock. There can be no difficulty 
in this; and, with the experience of 1867 before us, the system of 
driving late for the fall markets is calculated to preserve the most 
promising of all outlets for southern farmers and drovers. There are 
objections, perhaps, to this plan; but, since it is impossible for the 
trade to go on in a reckless and ill-regulated manner, it is for the 
interest of all that the least objectionable plan, and yet the one most 
certain to prevent the ravages by disease, should be adopted. 

We are not in a position to recommend any system of quarantine ; 
but all who intend to further the interests of this trade should remember 
that during the summer season they cannot, without damaging their 
business, intermingle southern with northwestern stock. 

The line of demarcation must be distinct; and whereas in some 
places the local stock must be fenced in, in others the Texan steers will 
have to submit to some crowding, and conditions which are not the most 
favorable for so large a trade. 


APPENDIX. 
POST-MORTEM APPEARANCES. 


Observation I, July 30, 1868.—Red cow; the property of Mr. A. J. 
Moore, of Tolono, killed by bleeding. Blood flowed freely, and was of 
a bright arterial hue. The skin was removed and the respiratory organs 
first examined, and found in a normal state. The pericardium was 
opened, and its reflected portion was sound. The heart of normal size 
and consistency, but studded with punctiform extravasations of blood 
around the apex, on the left auricular appendix. The right cavities 
were found empty and normal. The left were also empty, but there was 
extensive discoloration of the endocardium over the fleshy pillars and 
the septum. It was of an alternate purple and blood-red tint, and op 
cutting through the endocardium it was found infiltrated with blood. 
This infiltration extended in some parts to a sixteenth of an inch in 
depth beneath the serous membrane. 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 13a 


The mouth, fauces, cesophagus, and the first three stomachs, were 
healthy. The fourth stomach contained a greenish liquid, and its mucous 
surface was intensely reddened, with the exception of antrum pylori, 
which retained its normal color. 

The folds of the cardiac end were thickly studded with ecchymoses, 
which appeared to have coalesced, and the membrane had in many parts 
given way, so as to induce the appearance of small, irregular ulcerations. 
There was no thickening around the ulcers, nor evidence of progressive 
ulcerated change, but the solutions of continuity seemed due to the dis- 
charge of epithelium and death of the subjacent membrane in the center 
of the bloody extravasations. 

The duodenum was of a deep yellow, bile-tinged color. The jejunum 
and ileum were carefully examined throughout their whole extent, and 
found reddened. Peyer’s glands were healthy. 

The cecum was reddened around the ileo-colic opening, and the colon 
had irregular patches of congestion. In the rectum blood extravasations. 
were found all along the free margin of the folds. 

The spleen was of a deep purple hue, weight seven and one-half pounds; 
and its structure was so disintegrated that a black mass of pulp oozed out 
of the incisions; and with the slightest force nothing remained intact but 
the trabecule. 

The liver and gall bladder weighed twenty-seven and one-half pounds. 
They were congested, but otherwise apparently healthy. The liver 

_afforded indications of fatty change. 

The kidneys were of a dark color, and contained bloody urine in the 
pelves. The urinary bladder was enormously distended with dark, 
blood-colored urine, and weighed with its contents nineteen pounds. 
The uterus was healthy, and contained a foetus about a month old. 

The brain and spinal cord were carefully examined. The meninges 
were generally congested, and the posterior part of the cord, when cut 
across, indicated very decided redness of the superior cornua of gray 
matter. 

Observation IT, July 30, 1868.—Cow ; the property of Mr. C. B. Cham- 
berlain, of Tolono. This animal was also bled to death and skinned. 

The thoracic organs were found quite healthy. 

The first and the second stomach were likewise normal; but the third 
was somewhat inordinately distended by dry food, firmly impacted 
between its folds. The folds themselves were sound. 

The fourth stomach was congested throughout, but its folds, at the 
cardiac end, were of a deep, modena-red hue. In the vicinity ‘of the 
pylorus were a couple of small patches of erosions of the mucous mem- 
brane. 

The small intestine was the seat of ramified redness throughout its 
entire length. In the large intestine, from the cecum to the rectum, 
there was a dark, inky-looking deposit of blood along the free edge of 
the mucous folds, and between these, at points, the membrane was con- 


134 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


siderably congested. The liver was much congested, fatty, and weighed 
twenty-one pounds. 

The spleen was of a purple hue, its tissues undergoing disintegration, 
and it weighed two and one-half pounds. 

The kidneys were dark colored, and the bladder largely distended 
with bloody urine. 

The spinal cord only of this animal was examined, and the gray mat- 
ter found of a dark red color in the posterior part adjoining the cauda 
equina. 

Observation III, July 31, 1868.—Two-year-old steer; the property of 
Mr. Mathews, near Tolono. Examined three hours after death. Marked 
cadaveric rigidity. Organs of respiration healthy. The heart, of nor- 
mal size and firmness, was extensively ecchymosed on its outer surface, 
especially down the anterior and the posterior ventricular furrows. The 
right cavities contained a small amount of blood. The left were empty, 


but the fleshy pillars were of a deep purplish tint from extensive ecchy- 


mMOSIsS. 

The mouth, pharynx, cesophagus, the first and the second stomach, 
were healthy. The third stomach was considerably distended by dry 
food. The fourth stomach was the seat of diffuse redness over its entire 
mucous surface, but the depth of color was greatest at the cardiac end. 
Freely dispersed over the surface were small, circumscribed erosions 
with red areole round them; and these evidently resulted from ecchy- 
motic patches, which sloughed in their centers. In the pylorie end 
were several irregular patches of cuticular degenerations. The green 
contents of the stomach adhered to the denuded surfaces. 

The jejunum was the seat of ramified redness over its mucous surface, 
and a similar congestion partially affected the ileum and large intestine. 

The liver was normal in size and general aspect. 

The spleen was of a dark purple tint, about three times its natural 
size, and its pulp softened. 

The kidneys were turgid with blood, and the urinary bladder much 
distended with bloody urine. 

Observation IV, August 1, 1868.—Seven-year-old steer; the property 
of L. D. Ayers, of Farina. This animal was first seen ill on Thursday, the 
30th of July, and died at noon on the Ist of August. Respiratory pas- 
sages healthy. On opening the chest it was noticed that the lungs were 
only partially collapsed. They had rather a blanched appearance, and, 
on removal from the chest, it was found that through the posterior lobes, 
and all along the upper aspect to the anterior lobes of the lungs, there 
was well-marked interlobular emphysema. Incisions in various parts of 
the emphysematous tissue indicated the normal aspect of the lobules, 
with free extravasation of air in the connective tissue around them. 
The lungs weighed fifteen pounds. The mediastinal reflections of the 
pleura were densely studded with ecchymoses, and the same appearance 
pervaded the pleural portions of the same membrane. The pericardial 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 135 


sac contained a little yellow serum; and the heart, of normal size, was 
extensively eechymosed around the base of both ventricles. The right 
side contained a small quantity of partially clotted blood; and the left 
ventricle, also containing a little dark blood, was the seat of extensive 
ecchymoses over nearly the whole of its inner aspect. 

The alimentary canal, from the mouth to the third stomach, was in a 
normal state. The contents of the third stomach were soft, and moder- 
ate in quantity. 

The cardiac end of the fourth stomach was of a dark red color, and 
its folds thickly studded with small yellowish elevations, having the 
appearance of vesicles, but solid, and apparently consisting in opaque 
epithelial enlargements. The pyloric end was of normal color and free 
from erosions or other signs of disease. 

The small intestines, of a pinkish hue externally, were intensely 
reddened on their mucous surface. There was general capillary con- 
gestion, and the ramified character of the red tinge was most marked. 
One of Peyer’s glands had an elevated and somewhat thickened appear- 
ance. The color was rather less deep than the adjacent membrane, and 
on making an incision into it there was no evidence of deposit beneath 
it, or noteworthy change in structure. 

In the cecum a very marked ecchymosis surrounded the ileo-colic 
opening, and several marked blood extravasations, well circumscribed 
and limited in extent, existed in the colon and rectum. The liver and 
gall bladder weighed twenty-nine pounds. The structure of the liver was 
congested, and betokened active changes in the shape of fatty degener- 
ation. 

The spleen was dark, friable, and weighed eight pounds. The two 
kidneys weighed four and one-quarter pounds, and were of a dark red 
color. The bladder was much distended with bloody urine. Its mucous 
membrane was congested at the fundus. 

The cranium was opened and its entire contents found abnormally 
vascular, On removing the brain the dura mater was found studded 
with bright vermillion blood spots, about the size of an ordinary pin’s 
head. The medulla oblongata was healthy. The gray matter in the 
cerebellum was of a very decided reddish hue; but the consistence of 
both white and gray matter appeared normal. The cerebrum showed 
very marked puncta vasculosa on making horizontal sections of its 
hemispheres. 

Observation V, August 1, 1868.—Red cow; the property of S. F. 
Randolph, of Farina. Died at 2 p. m., and examined at 5 p.m. Cadav- 
eric rigidity marked. Respiratory passages healthy. On opening the 
chest it was found that the right lung collapsed imperfectly; it was 
palish, and the seat of interlobular emphysema on its upper border, and 
between the middle and the inferior lobe. The left lung was somewhat 
ecchymosed. On the surface of half a dozen lobules there was a dark, 
flea-bitten appearance, which corresponded with considerable conges- 


136 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


tion of the lung tissue within. The structure floated on water, and was 
certainly free from inflammatory deposit. The lungs weighed twelve 
pounds. The heart, of normal size and consistence, was freely ecchy- 
mosed over its entire outer surface. The right ventricle contained a 
little frothy blood, but was not blood-stained. The left ventricle also 
contained a little dark fluid blood, and was free from ecchymoses. On 
opening the left auricular appendix, it was found studded with puncti- 
form petechie. Alimentary canal, all anterior to the fourth stomach 
was healthy, but this organ was of a deep red color over the mucous 
folds of the cardiac end. The antrum pylori was studded over its 
entire surface with irregular erosions, exceeding twenty in number. 
None of these had the granular surface or peculiar edges of true ulcers, 
but looked like abrasions, the epithelium haying been removed and the 
reddened mucous surface more or less discolored by adherent vegetable 
matter, constituting the base of the solutions of continuity. The duode- 
num was of a dark yellow color, and the areolar tissue around it was 
edematous. The whole internal surface of the small intestines was the 
Seat of ramified redness, with marked ecchymoses scattered in large 
numbers throughout. Some of blood-stained spots have sloughed in their 
centers. The ileo-colic fold was blackened and tumefied, and the longi- 
tudinal mucous folds in the colon and rectum were stained with 
blackened blood extravasations. The liver and gall bladder, to all 
appearances in a healthy state, weighed nineteen pounds. 

The spleen, of a dark color, with a deep red pulp which oozed out of 
incisions made through the capsule, weighed five pounds and four ounces: 
The kidneys weighed two pounds, but, with the exception of urine of a 
port-wine color in the pelvis of each, appeared sound. The bladder was 
distended with bloody urine, but its coats were of a healthy color. The 
cranial contents appeared rather unusually vascular, but otherwise 
healthy. The spinal cord was not examined. 

Observation VI, August 6, 1868.—Three year old cow; the property 
of G. F. Byers, of Sodorus. Died the night previous to the examination. 
No cadaveric rigidity. Decomposition commenced. On removing the 
skin it was found that effusion had taken place under the sternum. The 
organs of respiration were found healthy. The heart was somewhat 
softened from incipient decay ; both outer and inner surface were the 
seat of cadaveric blood-staining. The entire alimentary canal was found 
normal, and free from congestion, ecchymoses, or erosions. The liver also 
was sound. The spleen, much enlarged, probably four times its natural 
size, was softened at its base, and blood had flowed freely out during 
the life of the animal, as clots and liquid blood dropped out of the perito- 
neum when it was first opened. The kidneys were normal, and the 
bladder wonderfully distended by clear-colored urine. It is worthy of 
note that this cow had been noticed to be sick for two days, but dis- 
charged clear urine on the evening of the 5th, and did not then appear 
in a dying state. She succumbed suddenly and unexpectedly during 


a _—__ 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. Lat 


the night; and, as the post mortem indicated, from hemorrhage from the 
spleen. 

Observation VII, August 7, 1868.—Steer; the property of Mr. P. Har- 
ris, of Champaign. Organs of respiration healthy. General aspect of 
heart normal. Right cavities containing a little blood, and free from 
ecchymoses On the fleshy pillars of the left ventricle there was marked 
and diffused extravasations of blood. The anterior part of the ali- 
mentary canal, as far down as the third stomach, was quite normal. 
The fourth stomach was slightly reddened; and, at the cardiac end, the 
folds were studded with small, yellowish eminences, as described in a 
previous case. The pyloric end was the seat of marked and numerous 
erosions. The intestinal tract was quite healthy, with the exception of 
slight redness of the mucous surface of the small intestine. 

The liver and gall bladder were normal. 

The spleen was at least twice its natural size, of a dark color, and soft- 
ened structure. 

The kidneys were dark-colored from congestion, and the bladder very 
much distended with urine of port-wine color. 

On severing the head from the neck, it was found that around the 
dura mater, in the foramen magnum, there was an exudation of yellowish 
lymph, studded with numerous confluent petechiz of a very dark color. 
On removing the brain it was found of normal consistence. The spinal 
cord in the dorsal and the lumbar region was reddened, especially in the 
upper horns of its gray matter. 

Observation VIII, August 7, 1868.—Steer; also the property of Mr. 
P. Harris, of Champaign. Killed for the purpose of dissection. Organs 
of respiration healthy throughout. Heart slightly eechymosed on the 
outer surface of the ventricles. The right side contained a small quan- 
tity of fluid blood, with slender clots somewhat adherent to the auriculo- 
ventricular valves. Left ventricle empty and healthy. 

Pharynx, gullet, the first and the second stomach, healthy. The third 
stomach impacted with dry food. The fourth stomach of a deep red 
color over its cardiac folds, and studded somewhat with small, grayish 
eminences of the size of ordinary pins’ heads. The mucous surface of 
the pyloric end, wherever it was whole, was of normal color; but it was 
freely spotted with very distinct erosions of irregular shape, dark in 
the center; and the largest of these was on the pylorie gland and 
extending on the transverse fold at the pyloric opening. The duode- 
num, and indeed the entire small intestine, was found with the mucous 
surface congested. The cecum, colon and rectum, throughout their 
entire length, were reddened within, and ecchymoses were freely dis- 
tributed over their whole interior. The liver and gall bladder were 
normal. 

The spleen was dark colored, soft, and thrice its natural size. The 
kidneys were somewhat congested, and the urinary bladder, though 


138 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


presenting no abnormal appearance of its coats, was distended with 
bloody urine. 

Observation IX, August 8, 1868.—Small two-year-old steer; the 
property of Mr. Frank Peters, Scott township, six miles west of Cham- 
paign. Had died the previous night, and presented the unusual appear- 
ance of dried, clotted drops of blood, each about the size of an ordinary 
drop of water, freely distributed over the neck, flanks, body, and limbs. 

Organs of respiration healthy. Heart beginning to decompose, but 
showing no signs of disease. First three stomachs healthy. The fourth 
stomach was slightly reddened at its cardiac end; but its folds were 
thickly studded with small, grayish eminences, having the general 
appearance of a vesicular eruption. The color of the mucous surface 
of the pyloric antrum was healthy, with the exception of two small, 
irregular erosions. The small and the large intestine were entirely free 
from congestion or other indications of disease. The liver and gall 
bladder were sound, and weighed eleven pounds. The spleen was freely 
ecchymosed on its surface, soft and enlarged, weighing three and a half 
pounds. The kidneys were dark colored, and beginning to decompose. 
The bladder was healthy and much distended with bloody urine. The 
brain and spinal cord were healthy. 

Observation X, August 8, 1868.—Four-year-old cow, belonging to the 
same proprietor as the last steer. 

On opening the chest it was found that the lungs collapsed imper- 
fectly; and that on their dorsal aspect, especially of their posterior 
lobes, there was very marked interlobular emphysema. 

The external aspect of the heart was normal. The right cavities were 
full of dark blood, and indicated cadaveric blood-staining of the endo- 
cardium. The left ventricle, also, contained much dark blood; and its 
free wall, as well as the column carne, was extensively ecchymosed. 

The first three stomachs were healthy. The fourth was the seat of 
ramified redness on the mucous folds, at the cardiac end; and numer- 
ous punctiform eminences of yellowish color gave the eruptive appear- 
ance, noticed in previous post-mortem examinations. The pyloric end 
was normal, and free from erosions. 

Both the large and the small intestine were quite normal. 

The liver was swollen as the result of decomposition, and the gall- 
bladder was distended with normal bile. 

The spleen, of a dark purplish tint and friable structure, weighed five 
pounds. . 

The kidneys were congested, and the urinary bladder distended with 
bloody urine. 

On severing the head from the neck, a considerable quantity of bloody 
serum flowed out of the meninges. The cranial contents were somewhat 
congested, but otherwise healthy. 

Observation XI, August 8, 1868.—Three-year-old steer; the property 
of Mr. ———_——,, of Champaign. Killed by division of spinal cord. 


 —_ a © 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 139 


Organs of respiration healthy. 

Heart of normal appearance, with the exception of slight ecchymoses 
in the left ventricle. 

Mouth, fauces, gullet, and first three stomachs healthy. Fourth stom- 
ach of a dark red color over the felds at the cardiac end, which were, 
thickly studded with small, circular ecchymoses ; and, wherever these 
congregated, the epithelium was detached, and the membrane exposed 
of a brownish red color. 

Many of the isolated ecchymoses had abrasions in their centers ; and 
the red areole around the erosions sometimes spread out irregularly. 
The abraded surface, in various parts, had the green contents of the 
stomach firmly adhering to them. The pyloric end was, to great extent, 
free from congestion, but was studded with erosions and zigzag fissures. 

Three of the abraded spots were much larger than the rest, extending 
to an inch and a half, and one to three inches, in length, by an inch and 
an inch and a half in breadth. 

Over the larger abrasions a scab had formed, to which the food was 
adherent. The irregular ulcers of the edges were red, but flat, and with- 
out tending to thickening or erosions. 

The small intestine was congested throughout the fundus of the 
cecum, of a deep red color; and over the whole mucous surface of the 
colon there was ramified redness. 

In the rectum there was blood extravasation in the substance of the 
mucous membrane, along the margin of the longitudinal folds. 

The liver and gall bladder weighed twenty-one and a half pounds, but 
offered no sign of morbid lesion, beyond fatty change in the gland. 

The spleen, of a dark color, with softened pulp, weighed five and a half 
pounds. 

The kidneys were turgid with blood, and the urinary bladder much 
distended by bloody urine. 

The cerebro-spinal centers were healthy. 

Observation XII, August 11, 1868.—Red cow; the property of L. R. 
Hastings, Chicago. This cow had been sick about a week, and was 
killed, by effusions of blood, for the purpose of dissection. 

The organs of respiration, the organs of deglutition, and first stomach 
were healthy. The second stomach contained many foreign objects, such 
as nails and wires; and one considerable piece of iron wire perforated 
the fundus. The mucous membrane was of a dull, dirty-red color over 
its whole surface. 

The third stomach was healthy. The fourth stomach, reddened at its 
cardiac end, was studded, over the whole of its transverse folds, with 
grayish-yellow eminences of the size of an ordinary pin’s head, as pre- 
viously described. The pyloric end was also somewhat congested, but 
studded throughout with irregular ulcers, four of which were of consid- 
erable size, and near the intestinal opening. There was ramified red- 


140 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


ness throughout the whole of the mucous membrane of the small intes- 
tine. 

The ileo-colic valve was ecchymosed, and ecchymoses were scattered 
over the whole fundus of the cecum. The inner lining of the colon and 
rectum was congested. The liver and gall bladder appeared generally 

“healthy, with the exception of some congestion of the gland and fatty 
degeneration. The spleen was much enlarged and thicker in the center 
than in any previously examined case. It weighed seven and one-half 
pounds. 

Organs of respiration healthy. The heart was slightly eechymosed on 
its outer surface. The right cavities were full of frothy blood, and ecchy- 
mosed on the free wall. 

The left ventricle was empty, and infiltrations of blood in and beneath 
the endocardium existed on the fleshy pillars and the septum. 

The kidneys were much congested. On cutting into the pelvis of each 
kidney, the mucous lining was found densely studded with eechymoses, 
as seen in the illustration.* 

The bladder was filled with dark urine. The mucous lining was dot- 
ted all over with small, vermilion, punctiform ecchymoses, as delineated 
in plate. The uterus was studded over its horns with small ecchymotic 
spots, similar to those on the inner surface of the bladder, as indicated 
by plate. The cerebral meninges were slightly congested, and the 
arachnoid sac contained an excess of serum. The gray matter of the 
medulla oblongata was reddened. On cutting into the cerebellum its 
gray centers were found ecchymosed, and similar well-marked extrayva- 
sations of blood existed in the gray matter of the crura cerebri. In other 
respects the brain appeared healthy. 

Observation XIII, August 12, 1868.—Red and white cow; the prop- 
erty of Mr. King, of Bridgeport; was killed by effusion of blood. The 
organs of respiration were found healthy. The heart was of normal size, 
but slightly eechymosed at the apex, and the outer surface of the left 
auricular appendix was of a uniform dark blood color, as seen in plate. 

The organs of deglutition and the rumen were healthy. The mucous 
membrane of the reticulum was throughout of a dull, port-wine color. 
The third stomach was normal. The fourth stomach was the seat of 
diffuse redness throughout, with an irregular abrasion near the pylorus. 
The small intestine was reddened in every part, and the large intestine 
ecchymosed in the cecum, and towards the end of the rectum. 

The liver and gall bladder were healthy. The spleen was at least four 
times its natural size, of a dark purplish tint, and its structure disinte- 
grated. 

The kidneys were dark colored and congested. The bladder enor- 
mously distended with bloody urine. The brain and its meninges gave 


*This and the following notices refer to the microphotographs made under the direc- 
tion of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel J. J. Woodward, United States army, which are not 
published in this edition of the report. 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 141 


signs of intense congestion, and the puncta vasculosa of the cerebrum 
were very marked. 

Observation XIV, August 13, 1868.—Red steer; the property of Mr. 
Joseph Heath, near Oxford; killed for dissection. ; 

Organs of respiration healthy. Heart healthy and free from petechie. 
The mouth, pharynx, esophagus, and first three stomachs were found 
healthy. The cardiac end of the fourth stomach was of a deep red color, 
some of the folds eechymosed, and some of the dark centers of the ec- 
chymoses had sloughed. The pyloric end was much less congested, 
but its entire surface more or less abraded. 

The exposed vascular membrane was of a dark red color, and the food 
firmly adhering to it. 

Both small and large intestine indicated some congestion of the 
mucous lining. 

The liver was considerably enlarged, much engorged with blood, and 
was fatty. 

The spleen weighed five and a half pounds, was dark in color, and 
friable in consistence. 

The kidneys were congested, and the bladder largely distended with 
bloody urine. 

Observation XV, August 14, 1868.—Red steer; the property of same 
owner; also killed for dissection. 

With the exception of slight eechymoses of the pleura on the anterior 
lobe of the left lung, the organs of respiration offered no indications of 
disease. 

The heart was of normal size, but appeared more flabby than in health. 
The right cavities contained a little fluid blood, and the columnae car- 
nee of the ventricle were slightly eechymosed. The blood-staining of 
the endocardium was much marked on the fleshy pillars of the left ven- 
tricle. : 

The organs of deglutition, the first, the second, and the third stom- 
ach, were quite healthy. ‘The fourth stomach not quite so much con- 
gested as usual, but its cardiac folds were studded with very numerous 
ecchymoses, many of which were perforated in their centers. ‘The pylo- 
ric end was also somewhat congested, but the erosions were more marked 
and extensive than on the transverse folds of the cardiac end. Near 
the pyloric opening were several small ulcers, to the surface of which 
the gastric contents had adhered. 

In the intestines, the only lesions discovered were a number of puncti- 
form ecchymoses in the rectum, especially near the anus. 

The liver was fatty, much engorged with blood, and appeared greatly 
increased in size. 

The spleen weighed four and a half pounds, was of a dark color, and 
its structure softened. 

The kidneys were of a deep red color, and the bladder much distended 


142 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


by bloody urine. The mucous surface of the bladder was studded all 
over with small petechiz of a vermilion hue, as seen in other cases. 

Observation XVI, August 20, 1868.—Red steer; at slaughter-house, in 
Bridgeport. 

Organs of respiration healthy. 

Heart firm and of normal size, was slightly ecchymosed at the apex, 
and on the fleshy pillars of the left ventricle. Organs of deglutition 
and the first stomach sound. The fourth stomach was slightly reddened 
at the cardiac end; two small erosions, about one-third of an inch in 
length, existed near the pylorus, where the membrane generally was of 
normal color. 

The intestines were healthy. 

The liver and gall bladder, to all appearance, normal. 

The spleen, of a dark color, weighed four and a half pounds; but its 
structure had undergone little change, was firm, and of a brighter red 
than any previously examined in splenic fever. The appearance of this 
spleen is shown in plate. 

The kidneys were slightly congested, and, on cutting into the pelves, 
some bright eechymoses were found, as if in the earliest stage of blood 
extravasation in these structures. The bladder contained a moderate 
quantity of clear-colored urine, but was slightly eechymosed near its 
neck. The cerebro-spinal centers healthy. 

Observation XVII, August 21, 1868.—Red cow; examined at St. 
Louis. Killed by effusion of blood. Respiratory passages healthy. On 
opening the thorax the lungs were found pale, and only partially col- 
lapsed. 

The posterior lobe of the right lung was the seat of extensive inter- 
lobular emphysema. On the anterior and the middle lobes were several 
scattered patches of congestion, corresponding to congested lobules, 
within which were simple reddened, not solidified, globules, and they 
floated on water. 

The heart, of normal size and consistence, was slightly ecchymosed 
on the anterior and the posterior ventricular furrows. Internally the 
right cavities, containing a little fluid blood, were healthy; but the left 
was tinged by ecchymotic spots on the fleshy pillars of ventricle. 

The mouth, pharynx, gullet, and first three stomachs, were healthy. 
The fourth stomach was reddened at its cardiac end, and its folds stud- 
-ded all over with ecchymoses. This condition was kindly and most 
accurately reproduced in a water-color sketch, by C. V. Riley, esq., State 
entomologist. 

The small intestine was the seat of ramified redness throughout. In 
the cecum, in a line with the muscous folds, the blood extravasations 
which had occurred were of a dark rusty color; and similar changes 
were seen in the rectum. 

The liver and gall bladder, much congested, weighed twenty-five 
pounds. In the liver were old adhesions, and some deposits of yellow 


Ce eS | ee eee 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 143 


granular lymph, near the surface, extending in one instance to half an 
inch in depth. There was also marked evidence of fatty degeneration.. 

The gall bladder was the seat of extensive, ramified redness on its 
inner surface. 

The spleen, of a dark purplish tint, weighed six and a half pounds. 
Wherever an incision was made, its softened pulp exuded without pres- 
sure. 

The kidneys, paler than usual in this disease, weighed three and one- 
quarter pounds. They were free from ecchymoses. 

The urinary bladder was much distended with bloody urine. 

The cerebro-spinal meninges were intensely congested. 

The gray matter of the brain was reddened, and the puncta vasculosa 
in the oval centers very marked. 

Observation XVIII, August 24, 1868.—Black steer; the property of 
Messrs. Palmer and Perry. Died during the day. Post-mortem exam- 
ination at 6 p.m. Respiratory passages normal; cadaveric congestion 
of left lung. On opening the pericardium, the heart was found exten- 
sively ecchymosed at the base of the right ventricle, and over the origin 
of the pulmonary artery. The right cavities contained a little dark, 
semi-fluid blood. The left side was nearly empty, but on the column 
carne of the ventricle there was a dark purplish tint of the endocardium 
from extensive extravasations of blood in and beneath its structure. 
The digestive organs anterior to the true stomach were sound. The car- 
diac end of the abomasum was of a diffuse red color. The mucous 
membrane of the pyloric end was of normal color, wherever it was not 
eroded, but it was studded with between twenty and thirty abrasions 
of the epithelium, exposing the vascular membrane in patches varying 
from one-fourth to one and one-half inch in length, and usually longer 
than broad. The duodenum was turgid with bile. The jejunum was 
extensively ecchymosed on its inner surface. The largeintestine healthy, 
except some extravasation on the rectal folds. 

The liver and gall bladder, of general normal look, but congested, 
weighed twenty-seven pounds. The gall bladder was distended by 
inspissated bile. The gland itself was softened by fatty change. The 
spleen, dark and softened, weighed seven and one-fourth pounds. The 
kidneys were intensely congested, but not ecchymosed. The bladder 
was full to repletion of bloody urine, but its coats were normal. Dark- 
ness precluded the examination of the brain and spinal cord. 

Observation XIX, August 26, 1868.—Two-year-old roan steer; the prop- 
erty of Mr. Richard Callahan, near Abilene. Organs of respiration healthy. 
Heart flabby and blood-stained on the posterior ventricular furrow. In- 
terior of right side unchanged, but on the septum, and fleshy pillars in 
the left ventricle, were extensive ecchymoses. 

On opening the abdomen the peritoneum was found studded with 
punctiform ecchymoses. 

Organs of deglutition and first three stomachs normal. The cardiac 


144 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


end of the fourth stomach was intensely reddened, and its folds marked 
by zigzag fissures or ulcerations, in the center of which were black scabs, 
with adherent food. The pyloric end was of more normal color, but four 
ulcers, about one-half inch broad, and of irregular shape, existed in its 
middle; and at the pyloric end was a larger spot of ulceration, about 
one inch in length. 

The duodenum was much congested on its minor surface, and diffuse 
redness pervaded the mucous membrane of the jejunum and ileum. In 
various parts of the latter were small, dark petechiz. 

The mucous membrane of the whole of the large intestine was of a 
dark red color, and the excrement in the rectum was tinged with blood. 
Through the whole of the longitudinal mucous folds extravasations of 
blood had occurred. The liver and gall bladder weighed seventeen and 
one-half pounds, and appeared healthy. The bile in the gall bladder 
was thick. The spleen was very dark in color, its pulp soft, and general 
weight five and one-half pounds. 

The kidneys were much congested, and the mucous membrane of each 
pelvis spotted with dark ecchymoses. 

In the peritoneal cul de sac, around the bladder and rectum, were 
numerous bright eechymoses, The bladder was full of bloody urine, 
and its mucous lining extensively dotted with small blood spots, of a 
vermilion hue. 

On severing the head from the neck, a large quantity of serum flowed 
from the meninges. The meninges were dark, and of the general color 
of the gray matter of the cord, and the brain was much redder than in 
health. 

Observation XX, September 5, 1868.—Three-year-old red-and-white 
cow; the property of Dennis Doran, Brighton, near Chicago, This cow 
had died during the preceding night, and was dissected at 5 p.m. on 
the 5th. There was no sign of decomposition, and the internal organs 
were still warm. 

The organs of respiration were healthy. 

Heart and pericardium sound, and free from eechymoses. 

Organs of deglutition and first stomach healthy. Second stomach of a 
dull red hue in its inner lining. Third stomach normal. Fourth stom- 
ach of a dark red color at its cardiac end, with various ecchymoses, aud 
half a dozen small, circumscribed spots where the epithelium had been 
thrown off, and the dark red vascular membrane exposed. 

The general color of the lining in the antrum pylori, was much less 
intensely red than in the transverse folds, but was the seat of several 
erosions. . 

The pylorie gland had a zigzag ulcer on its summit. 

The small intestine was the seat of ramified redness. In the large 
intestine the longitudinal mucous folds were all reddened along their 
free margins, by blood extravasation. 

The liver was sound, but the gall bladder thickened by serous infiltra- 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 145 


tion; and its mucous lining indicated the ramifications of the lesser arte- 
ries and veins, which were gorged with blood. 

The spleen weighed six and a third pounds, was of a dark purplish 
tint, and its pulp softened. 

The kidneys congested, but not ecchymosed. 

The urinary bladder distended by bloody urine. 

The broad ligaments of the uterus were thickly studded with eechy- 
moses of a bright arterial hue; cerebro-spinal centers not examined. 


10 


146 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


TABLES OF WEIGHT OF THE LIVER AND SPLEEN, HEALTHY AND DISEASED, OF CATTLE 
EXAMINED AND REFERRED TO IN THE REPORTS OF PROFASSOR GAMGEE. 


August 26 to August 30. 


CHEROKEE SPL«ENS. 


Br Bell Ba Bl 2 OF Re Oto OE) eee ee Ok) ee ee eee 24 
2 2) Qh 2 at 28 24 Q2 | Qk 24 24 Qn Qh 22) QE 2 
2) 2h) 2 | 8k) 2b) ) Oe | RE ie | mois) oe |S oniaeon | 04) op |) ote ae 
o} ot] or] O24] 92] 22] 92] of] Ob} of | 92] of] 92] On] of 2 
Bp 2k | Ob Ok | Ok Oe OE (8 | see ls Oa oa vor) Ot. Oh) eae 
BP] 2b] Bb] BE Rey Qe Oe) ee fe REN LOE eb) Pak. Ob | Me Sa SRE 
a Aer ee ee lea 
2 oct ‘sch ~2 a _ 2 4 a2 a2 ws 
Uy Ao) ioe Feet PA etrees eset Psi eee [ene eel fe ene | ee ee elie eae seeeisclfea dys Nhe ss ck Bee ee 3014 
Aver'e:|\.s=ecle ee cee seen Self eck leeas alesse el Sa crepai|ieatn eral Garces else ece | Seoecrtel| err etene| eter lotr 2.36 
TEXAN SPLEENS. 
3h 31 3 o a1 oF Qh Qi Qi 3 31 3 QL | 3 2 
eee Med miele ee) | 
4 24 : 4 23 2 2 2 31 2 94 2 i | 
3e 34 34 32 34 3 Qu 34 3 3t 34 3} 3 Qh 34 3h 
3 3h 34 3 QE 23 Qt 3 Qt 3 Qt Qh 3 Q4 3 o1 
3 34 3 3 3 3 4 Qa Qh 34 3 on 24 24 Qi 31 
Qt 3 3h 24 Qt 21 Qt 33 Qh Qh 3h Qn 3 Q 3 32 
Qh 24 23 ot Qi] .32 3h 3h 34 24 3 34 Qt 3 3 32 
Qn 21 24 3h 34 Qh Qt 3 Qt)" 2 Qt 3 24 Q 24 3 
QL 24 3 Qn 2 a1 Qt 3 33 34 4 3h 3 32 3h 4 
Shy 24 2t 24 2s 3s 3t 33 ot 3t 4 QE 32 3t 23 2s 
3 el] Peal ee eeky | See Qt| 22] Qa] et ccikon 
Motallies| seseiee | owen teehee BAS ee es (eae lseere a] emer | earner (ac eetees Waele oo re be ce 3 530 
Aver elnes Jo =| tisers|||saea S| Snes ts co cella lle eters Ses] serena [eee Se cterett| rete oye oenee ars | eres | Se 2.83 
NATIVE SPLEENS. 
| | 
13 1 14 14 it 1} 13 aps 14 14 1} 4 14 1 14 14 
UPS Reese caine eh lime ca sv SS) Dear es al Ferre) me Se STP a al a 14] 14} 12 13 
14) 13 13 14 1+ 14{ ai 124 14 14 iy 14 14 14 13 14 
13 13 1¢ 14 14 14] 12 14 1k 14 14 4 1k 14 14 14 
Te pm as ee alla at a GD a Da i re eRe Sp 14 
i- 14 1s 1d 13 12 2 14 14 13 14 14 14 14 13 13 
ies yf Te: ly lt it Tel Sealy oils 1} 1 1} ike Fs 1g 14 1d 
13 13 1} 1} 1t 14 14 1¢ 1} it It 14 1} 13 1¢ 13 
13 14 12 14 
Total &| Ab eee ase i ere Pee coger ee am Pees jt Ball Seal ee S| ea ae 183} 
ASOLO. coats |(saceiee|| ose tsem se serelell eats ate =| siete eae eller Sstacd|lkeatos asaee|, Gosee| asc || Neeeee 1.38 
Native cattle. 
MALE. 
a “e a at a a | B mn 
Date. 3 5) Date. 3 Ay Date. $ 2 || Date. 3 3 
2 a A a a caieti a 2 
nD a | nD Bip a7) fe R 4 
Stith, Vacoss to Os | Senky Sees) 2 gy [iia Soecal Tes) 1D | Seri Mo) i 11 
a4) 1 Tee || iG) Pe || a) | 14 12 
1 9 2 10 | 14] 13 2 10 
Sent. Oeeeee 14 | 14 1 Shad PEN als) 14 9 
Q 15 14 9 1 12 1z 8 
ey) 5 14°} 10 1 13 it 12 
TES a3 ape 9 13 | 10 14 i 
14 | 13 g 5 2 17 4 11 
Q 13 ] 8 ie |) 13 14 12 
2 13 13%) 10 14] 13 als 13 
2 12 1 6 MeSepts 1Osss| ames 9 1} 11 
1¢ | 10 14} 10 1 8 13 13 
13) 12 1 8 14 g | 14 iil 
2 13 2 14 14 | 10 2) 12 
Tee |p Lt 1 9 Ths || ak 14 12 
TW |} aig) 13 9 14 9 | 2 10 
13; 10 Q 8 Ty | il) 1 9 
| 9 1 9 14} 10 | 14 15 
1 8 Tee |, 14] dL | 2 14 
14} 10 13 9 13] 11 1 12 


Nore.—By the term ‘‘native,” as applied to eattle or their diseased organs, is meant not indigenous, but 
cattle not raised in districts whence the infection originated. 


—————_ 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 147 


Native cattle—Continued. 


MALE. 
a a ai a 
=| an A wm =| za =| wn 

Date. 3 5 Date. Es 5 Date, 3 5 Date. 5 5 

e 2 ee B a P a is 
M | 2) | MR 4 MD =) 

Sept. 10 ... 2 16 Sept. li... i ais Sept. 13:.-- Tey I) ae Sept. 14... Qt 19 
| 13 14 | 12 1s | 16 14 12 
ira) ake) 14 14 il 8 P. 11 
2 13 14 16 al 6 14 9 
ie | 2 14 9 14 OT WiSeptaliay-- 14 12 
2 13 1+ 13 14 12 1t 16 
14] 12 14| 12 ze [9 14 16 
2 14 14 12 i 8 14 14 
11 9 1} 13 1+ 10 13 15 
14 9 14 14 13 14 It 12 
14 10 14 1 1 10 ay 14 
1 10 2)2) 216 1 4) 14 13 
12 9 2 13 14 8 1¢ 12 
if: 10 14 14 i Uf 1 9 
13 ll 14 14 Sept. 14... 14 10 1 10 
i 10 14 13 iy 9 13 | 12 
14 1L nl 10 14 10 14 14 
il 9 1d 12 14 9 14 14 
14 12 1 9 14 y 1 10 
Qi 12 14 14 13 8 13 15 
l 8 14 12 14 8 13 12 
1 11 Ft 13 1 6 1+ 13 
1 10 Sept. 13 ..- 14 igl 1¢ 1L 14 14 
1 Til 2 12 14 10 it 13 

Sept. 11 .-... 1 10 1¢ 13 14 12 14 14 
id 10 o 15 14 16 il 9 
1t 9 1 IL 14 20 1 11 
1 1L 14 12 14 16 14 12 
15 12 2 12 ibe 13 14 13 
Z 10 14 12 7 ie 9 al 190 
14 11 Q 15 1t 6 2 16 
14 11 14 14 It 8 14 13 
14 11 2 13 ifs 16 14 14 
14 ait 14 10 lt 13 Q 16 
it 10 14 16 1¢ 12 14 ai 
14#| 9 } 1 8 aah sl 14 13 
1¢ 9 1 Wi 1+ 8 ies 10 
2 13 1 6 1s 9 14 11 
2 16 14 11 es 10 1+ 13 
14 18 14 13 15 10 14 9 
1G 9 14 12 13 12 1 11 
14 16 14 10 1¢ 12 | 13 

BG au 9 
2 | 14 | 4 | ie |) Totes | Bree | 2929 
1 10 14 9 13 Average... | 1.46 11.39 
\ Native cattle—Continued. 
FEMALE. 
4 | 

Sept. o)----- 2 16 SepipOme |e tom Sep thoi salsa sl: 16 Sept. 92-—- 1t 13 
it 12 2 lay || 2 19 ies 13 
1 15 14 16 1 13 ii 14 
2 11 2 13 13 13 1d 12 
2 14 Qh 12 il 14 14 14 
1} 12 Dex 15 14 16 14 10 
2 16 Q 16 1 14 1} 15 
14 12 Sept. 9-...- ie: 13 ile 9 1+ 10 
2 13 1+ il 1¢ 12 1i 12 
1 10 1+ 14 14 10 14 10 
1 9 ape | et 14 | 10 14 8 
14 | 14 2 | 12 Wl 7 lu 12 
1 1L 14 12 1 uf 1 11 
14 1S» 1+ 13 ies 9 1 11 
if 9 14 15 Tle 10 24 9 
14 16 2 12 igs 12 1 10 
14 1g 1¢ 13 13 10 2 14 
2+ | 10 13°) 14 2 10 1k ll 
14 11 14 13 13 10 1 8 
2 15 1} 16 Qt 14 1% | 11 
2 | 16 14] 12 COME SeptelOe=4|| 12 13 
2 20 2 20 ile 9 1 8 
14 14 1 13 14 1l 13 10 
ye 13 1 12 Ty 13 3 11 


148 : DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Native cattle—Continued. 


FEMALE, 
Pal a a wa 
a i] =| wm =| wm a mR 
Date. ® 5 Date. ® 5 Date. Ed 5 Date. 3 5 
a E = B "Far 2 i ie 
a =| | 2 | a) =) mR A 
Sept.10.-..| 14 9 Sepia ila!) Seba) SiS |tSeptalsaess|\meae il Sept 14525) 4g 9 
1 8 14} 12 14] 13 14 9 
14 | 16 14} 15 Q 16 14 8 
iE |) 12 | 16 12 || 12 ape 9 ' 
14} 12 14 | 12 14] 14 14 10 
14] 12 1 13 12| 12 14 9 
1S |) TE 14 | 12 Q 15 14 10 
1 8 14] 13 1 16 13 17 
as 14] 15 EI ally 14 16 
4] 11 | 15 1 12 1k 19 
139) 13 14] 14 a | es 14 8 
Te iG | 1 ity 1 12 eo 16 
14] 12 14] 14 il 15 14 19 
1a | 14 i, 15 i] 10 14 1 
14 | 12 1 11 il 12 it 13 
14 | 13 1 12 1 10 1 é 
We as) we |) a5} 14] 12 1 § 
1 9 1a) |) 159} Q 15 14 § 
1i} 12 PO a6} 14] 16 14 1% 
i 1G} 14 | 14 2 13 1 1§ 
14 8 1i | 14 13/13 14 14 
14] 10 Me | i153 1 11 14 16 
14] 12 14 | 13 14 | 12 14 14 
1 7 1 10 i 12 14 10 
Q 10 14 | 14 ibe || iy 14 12 
Tees ass 1} | 12 1 12 ots 10 i 
14 7 14] 10 1 12 is 8 
14 8 i) a6 1 12 14 10 
14 9 Ly ae 1 10 14 10 
4} 11 1 6 £2 14 10 
14} 10 1% || 15 1 10 14 10 
13] 13 1: | 16 1 12 1; 15 
Q 16 13 | 14 1 9 13 14 
1 8 14 | 13 1 12 il 5 
1 8 14 | 14 Ie |) g 4 
14} 11 14] 12 1g5\ 13 14 13 
es I ae a}| 39 1 13 13 15 
ie |) ath) 14] 15 14 | 10 14 10 
al a 1 8 Tet | ae) 14 8 
14} 10 PW ale ibe | ail 14 9 
14 9 14 | 16 14] 10 14 10 
13, a3 1a | 14 1 ll 14 9 
1 8 14 | 10 2 11 14 8 
14] 14 14] 15 1k | 0) 14 10 
1 8 14} 12 1 11 2 19 
ia) de wel 15 1 12 1} 17 
14] 12 Wel 2 2 ae 13 18 
14] 11 13 | 14 13} 10 14 11 
14} 11 1 n) 14] 10 14 12 
14] 11 1 11 1 8 iE} 14 
14 | 14 WE) 2 es 9 14 6 
2 10 1i/ 14 1 3 14 9 
14] 16 Q 16 ib | 1g) 1} 10 
14 it 14 | 14 1 6 ie 16 
1 10 18 |) ls} 1 6 14 t) 
2 16 1 10 13] 15 14 8 
2 10 Q 11 il 8 14 12 
1 11 oa Bs} iB i) 14 10 
2 16 14 | 14 ik 9 14 9 
14 | 16 2 16 || Sept. 14-...| 14 9 iPS -8 
3 13 Web| 712 1 6 1 5 
1 11 14 | 13 1 5 1 6 
1 8 14} 10 14 8 ike 9 
14-| 16 14 | 11 1k 9 14 12 
Q 16 12 | 13 1 6 14 14 
21) 16 lt 9 TEE ait 1 5 
1i | 16 iw) alk 14] 10 1 6 
2 14 14] 11 ee 8 it 12 
14, 14 14 | 13 14 9 14 20 
14) 15 ee ag} 13] 10 1 21 
1 12 1 10 1 45 14 10 
1 14 14} 12 1 6 it 9 
1 12 14 | 13 14 | 10 14 8 
14] 13 14] 14 Q 16 14 9 
14 | 14 14| 14 2 21 14 10 
Sepia ) 14 | 16 14] 18 14 11 
| aa: 14 | 12 14 || 22 14 13 
13 | 12 141 10 121 10 13 14 


a_i 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 


Native cattle—Continued. 


149 


FEMALE. 
a wn al D 

=| wa a mw S mn =| wn 

Date. EA 5 Date. > o Date. 3 3 Date. 3 i} 

= B es B = Bi a = 

a) | M 4 mM =) nN | 

4 

Neptaddeeee |e taelomlilasent.d5secl) dda mle iiSeptalds-..) 2 12 l'Septe18e-.:| | 1 16 
14 | 16 1 12 im b 13 2 12 
me |) 7 14 9 1 10 2 13 
Sept. 15\.-..|/ 14 || 14 14] 14 14 9 13 15 
14 | 12 2 15 2 11 2 12 
ieb |) ale) Tat 2 12 1 10 
14 | 12 1 12 14] 13 14 12 
14} 12 1 12 13] 15 13 13 
3] 1 14] 15 2 13 2 14 
14] 14 1 lL 14] 15 Q ui) 
1 12 134] 11 2 10 12 13 
1 ) 14 | 12 Q 10 14 15 
Tea 13) 2 Qt] 12 2 a 
14|] 12 Qi) 13 1 10 1} il 
14 8 1 11 14] 12 14 10 
13] 14 14] 10 2 10 14 ll 
1% | 10- is |, a2 1 12 es 12 
1 12 14} 11 14] 11 13 13 
2 15 1 LON iSeptelGiees|(a ale 14. 14 9 
] 12 14] 11 Q 16 14 10 
al 12 Q 13 Teale aly) 14 10 
1 12 2 13 Te 6 1 12 
14] 12 1 9 is il a5) 1 10 
1 12 mee |) ail 14] 15 ies 9 
isl a2) Q 12 ie | Dye 13 12 
14] 1. i 11 14] 17 14 10 
1 12 1 11 14 | 12 13 14 
1 12 14} 13 14] 13 1 15 
1 11 ¥] 1 14] 13 14 z 
1 11 14] 12 1 14 14 15 
1s) 12 14] 12 14] 14 2 17 
1 9 1¢ | 13 1 13 1 16 
Q alt 1 11 14} 14 14 14 
14 | 13 eel) nil Tes | 1S} 14 13 
1 12 . 1 13 14] 14 1 12 
14] 10 14] 12 14] 14 J 11 
14] 12 TL 10 14] 15 14 13 
1 10 14} 12 14] 15 1 15 
Tes | ae iL 8 ee || a7 1 10 
1 13 1 10 1 14 1 IL 
Q 15 1 11 1 14 ii 13 
2 12 1 9 1 13 14 12 
14] 13 1 itil 14] 13 1 14 
|p oe 1 10 2 15 1 4 
14] 13 eS |) Til 14 || 12 1 13 
ii | 14 14] 15 1 13 1 12 
14 | 14 We Ie “14 | 15 1 13 
We ave 14} 14 14 | 19 1 12 
14] 12 2 15 ie || aig} 1 13 
1 16 14] 15 14} 14 2 15 
ie |) ae 1 ll 1 13 1 17 
14 | 14 14 | 12 1 15 14 15 
Q 16 14 | 16 14] 13 1 14 
ipealy ae Q 16 14] 13 1 12 
De 13 14] 11 I 10 14 13 
14] 14 Q 12 1 13 1 14 
13 | 12 4] 11 14} 14 1 15 
14] 10 2 12 1 13 14 14 
14./ 10 91 | 13 14 | 12 1 15 
1 10 2 12 14] 13 14 14 
1 10 14] 14 14] 14 14 15 
Tee) alah Q 12 1 13 25 17 
17] 13 24 | 13 1i | 12 1 16 
14| 13 14] 11 1 12 14 14 
Q 14 2 12 1 13 i 13 
1 13 2 lL 14] 14 1 12 
14 |] 13 14} 12 iL 1L 1 lL 
14] 13 1 10 1 i) 14 13 
14] 12 14] 12 £ | 14 14 14 
12 |) a3 2 10 2 15 1 15 
1 12 Te) ta 2 12 1 10 
14] 13 14] 11 14} 1g 14 IL 
iss |) aig} Q 10 iz) 14 13 13 
14] 12 Th | Wl 1 15 il 14 
ly) Alf) QO |tSeptelSeeei Teas 1 il 
1 11 14 8 14] 16 1 a 
1 10 1 14 14] 14 14 12 
TE Mal) 14] 10 Te als 1 13 
a it 8 2 17 1 14 


150 


DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Native cattle—Continued. 


FEMALE, 
wn n na m 
A =| a a 
Date. 2 Date. 38 Date. 2 Date. 3 
Q Qa [ov Q 
M MD R RM 
Sept.18.....| 14 |Sept.18 &20.| 14 Sept.18&20.| 12 Sept. 24... : 
1 1 1 
1 14 14 1} 
i 4 2 1 
14° 12 14 14 
2 13 4 1} 
1 2 1 i 
1k 14 14 14 
1 ) 1 14 
1 1¢ 1} 1} 
1 1 ies 1} 
1 13 1 1 
1 14 14 14 
14 Q 14 ik 
14 12 14 1 
1 14 14 14 
14 1 ie 14 
1 14 1} 1} 
12 1 14 1} 
14 13 14 1 
Q Q 1 14 
Q 1} 14 14 
14 1 1 14 
2 14 14 1} 
] 14 14 i 
1 13 1 iy 
1 1 14 14 
14 14 14 14 
1 Q 1 14 
1 QL 14 1 
14 11: 14 1g 
] 1 ies Q 
(ll il 14 1t 
14 14 14 14 
1 2 13 1 
2) ji 14 14 
2) Q 1 it 
14 14 14 14 
14 14 1 1 
1 14 14 14 
1 14 14 14 
14 1 1 14 
Q 14 1 “Ht 
1 Q 14 1 
13 1} 1 14 
1 1 1 14 
1 12 1 ik 
14 1 14 13 
2 13 1g 12 
14 2 1 1 
1k lz 14 1} 
ik 13 9 1 
3 1 Sept. 24...) 14 1 
2 12 1 q 
14 ict 14 14 
1 "Q 14 14 
2 15 1 1 
14 1 ik 14 
13 14 1 1 
14 13 14 14 
1 1 t A 
ept.18&20, 2 13 13 
Rep 14 1 it 1 
14 Q 1 14 
14 14 14 14 
14 1 4 1 
iy 14 1 14 
13 14 14 14 
al 2 14 Total 23% 1 
2 14 14 | 1$ 
14 ies 1 | Average .-| 10 
14 13 14 | 7 4414! 
i i re 1, 4414 
1, 423 
| 


—— 


EEO ee a ae 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 151 


Native cattlek—Continued. 


MALE AND FEMALE. 


A an a wa a a A wa 
Date. 3 5 Date. 3 3 Date, 3 8 Date. 3 oD 
aol ic mes eel, Ss & 
i) = RM =| mM | mM =) 
August 20... 1 12 August 20. 1 9 Sept. 2... 14 12 Sept. 2.... 2 1] 
® 14} 14 ety] ail 1i| 14 Q 124 
2 gL 1 et 14] 14 2 9 
iPS || 8} 1 14 2 16 2 10 
il 15 1 12 1%) 15 1} il 
13] 16 14] 14 14} 14 14 iL 
Q 94 14 | 12 14} 14 14 12 
Q 14 1k 9 14 | 15 14 12 
| 13 14] 12 1 id Sept, Saaee| | 2 10 
13 | 12 1 14 WS || a 4 9 
1 12 1 12 ie) 1S QL 13 
1 13 14 9 14} 15 Qs 16 
te | 13 1 12 14} 16 Qf 10 
1 12 | 13 1 114 Q 10 
14 | 14 2 14 2 gt Q 11 
Q 12 2 16 .14] 113} Qf 13 
Q 13 2 18 14} 11 Qt 15 
Q 15 13 gi ii | 12 Qh 15 
13] 18 1 14 14] 12 Dy) 10 
14] 16 14] 15 iPS aint 14 il 
1 12 1 12 We || aie 12 13 
1 ot 12 | 16 ies) ig Q 12 
134] 14 il 12 i |} a Q 12 
1 12 1¢ || 15 Q 12 Qh 13 
1 4 1 14 2 13 Qh 14 
14| 12 1 15 | Q 10 3 14 
1 12 1 12 14 9 3 13 
vs |) Te 1 9 14 gt Qt 14 
1 15 14 8 1 9 Qi 12 
1 16 #] 12 1 gL 13 10 
il 12 £ gt 2 12 14 8 
2 9 g 8 2 10 14 ae 
Q 10 1 9 2 ll ty Gi 
Tz | 14 14 92 | Fs al?) 1 10 
1 15 , 1 12 1 9 14 9 
14| 13 1 12 14 | 12 14 9 
1 14) Sepia Qeeeney a 16 1 10 14 12 
1 12 Jz | 18 1 13 Q 10 
P) 13 13)] 14 2 gh Qh 9 
Ll 9 2 | 20 1 iil 1 9 
13] 12 14 | 14 i 12 it 104 
1 14 1 13 13} 10 2 lL 
Q 15 14] 12 1k} lL Q 12 
Q 17 14) 14 2 104 QL 12 
1 14 13| 13 2 11 14 12 
1 13 1 14 2 12 13 12 
14 | 14 2 20 1 11 1 il 
1 15 14} 14 1 12 2 12 
il 16 Q 20 14} 10 Qt 10 
14! 16 It | 14 1 114 QF 9 
1 14 1 13 1t 12 ) § 
14] 15 14 | 12 1 es 2g 10 
1 12 132 | 14 1 11 OL il 
1 13 TE || a8} 14 | 10 14 12 
1 143 1 13 1 94 2 9 
14 9 12) 14 1 9 2 10 
14] 12 13] 12 1 8L oh 9 
2 14 1 16 13 9 2 10 
Q 15 ie8)||\ ais} u 8i Q il 
14} 16 1i | 14 1 8 2 12 
2 17 1 14 1 84 Q il 
13 | 16 14 | 14 14 9 Sept. 4.5..| 1 a 14 
14] 12 1 13 it BL 14 12 
1#| 10 14) 15 14 8 14 14 
1%} 12 14| 18 i 8 14 14 
1 16 Ta 14 14 94 1} 12 
Q 18 Tee ale 1 10 13 10 
14 | 16 ae Te 14] 10 12 14 
12 eae 118 it 11 14 14 
1 12 14] 16 1 11 14 16 
Q 10 We 14 1S vis 12 14 
1 12 13 | 14 1 10 1¢ 14 
if) 13 Q 19 14} 12 1} 12 
if 14 14) 18 2 9} Q 14 
1 15 i 13 2 12 14 13 
12) 16 14 | 14 14] 10 3 18 
eel) 12 14 | 14 1 104 14 14 
Ji | 14 1 14 net |) alt 14 19 


152 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Native cattlh—Continued. 


MALE AND FEMALE. 


wi a i wa : a 
| wi a 2 a zi A Pa 
Date. 3 5 Date. o ® Date. 3 o Date. Es 3 

| ta fe emis a |e 
M =| mM | mM A i) =| 

Sept. 4-.<:. 13.) dasdl| Sept. Tek.) 121) 2agall Sept: %..2.| “BETS8 ll iSapt, 10/-2)) vale iit 

Sept Oseeee 1 16 ie |) iil 1 16 12 12 
13 | 14 ib |[ abe 14) 15 14 15 
1 15 12) 12 2 20 14 15 
14} 18 1 12 14 | 18 13 142 
14 | 16 2 | 113 TS |) i! 1 12 
14} 15 13/ 11 1 12 1 10 
13/ 14 13 | 12 14 | 16 14 gt 
Te a7 ike || aie} It | 14 14 13 
a9|oae iS |} 1) 1k | 15 14 13 
TEM) 155 2 11 Te ae 1 13 
18 |] Q 10 1 13 1 9 
14} 15 TY) 14] 14 Q gt 
14 | 18 14 | 10 || els 14 152 
14) 17 1 il ie |) Te) ia 11 
ee |) ay Te) 12 Tee |) a ii 12 
Q 11 14] 114 14] 14 14 13 
14] 13 1 12 i lh ay 14 g3 
2 13 ie 13 14 | 15 1 15 
ii | 14 13 94 14 | 14 1 8 
14 | 10 14| 12 Q 18 14 13 
22 9s 1¢ | 10% ies || aly 14 12 
14 | 10 2 94 14 | 15 | 18 12 
er 14) 103 1) 9 2 15 
1 | 24: Tes |) iil 1 16 2 163 
o)) 184 ap | 12 14 | 14 | 14} lt 
24) 114 14] 10 14 | 18 | Ik 12 
Q 132 1 Ox ES ig L 14 
13] 13 12] 10 8 | 44 14 13 
1 10 1 123 || Sept. 9.-..| 14 | 103 2 12% 
dey |) ali 13 13 1 Ta 1 12 
Q 9 14] 11 Q 12 il 13 
Q OL ay | ae! 14] 13 ik 14 
14) 114 or} 13 14 15 2 10 
134} 11 oy || il 1 14¢ | 2 15 
14 | 13 ipa || ae) 2 124 | 1k 10 
14 91 1 11 1 130" 14 14 
2 | 103 ey) We 1} gh 14 13 
2 gz 1 11 wee || a5 14 10 
ee at 97183 is |) 20 De ile, | 1} 11 
14 | 134 1 10 ee IPP By | 14 12 
14|/ 10 1 12 e's |) | 2 13 
1 124 ies) 28} 14 | 103 Qh 134 
1 ga 1 10 | 15 | 1 15 
ies | aul Ti) 12 Te |) To) 4) 1k 9 
1351] aaLO 1 92 1 ||| a5: 4 2 aes 
Hee || eye Te 2 2 144 1t 11 
12) 113 ee fe alg} 2 15 1 12 
Tee | ati iON) Til ; 14 | 103 14 13 
Q 154 2 | 10 1 12 ii 11 
14} 11 Ve ali 14 13) | 2 14 
2 13 93 | 12 1 154 | 13 15 
eal 3 eS |LY 15} 14 | 10 14 14 
13 | 113 3 13 ei} ey | 1 10% 
ee 2 | 10 14 | 11g 2 15 
Q 114 3 15 Te | 144 4 13 
9 | 12 1 | a3 14 | 16 14 114 
it 92 Q1| 14 || Sept. 10...) 14 12 1; 13 
14 gi 14] 16 1g | 13 Hn ie 
14] 93 1 13 1: 14 
4 | 19° 2 | 10 i 114 || Sept. 11---) 1 10 
13} 94 24 | 10 ae |) ality 1y 13 
1 9 93] 11 14 | 103 £ 8 
2 | 10 93 | 19 14 9 1 14 
13 | 12 14} ll a |) i an i 
1 il 2 13 1 10 4 

Beet aes 12 | 10 9 | 15 1 | 12 14 | 12 
1 12 3 | 10 eal 10 1 13 
1 13 14] 10 2 12 2 9 
13} 10 13| 13 Qi) sl 1 a 
14] 103 Tae 16 2 12 aC 13) 
| 113 Teo 18} 14 | 14 ] 14 
Q 8 14) 12 1 10 1 14 
Qt | a2 apes | 15 they 15 
Tey) aes By tat) 1f | 15 1 10 
14} 12 Q 11 1 11 2 16 
ey iO By || a6 2 9 1 14 
a/ 9 Sines 13 | 13 1 15 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 


Native cattle—Continned. 


MALE AND FEMALE. 


153 


a sa a a mn x 
2 hae s | 8 at lige 5 z 
Date. & 3 Date. D 3 Date. Ey ® Date. 3 o 
Yar E By 2 a > a & 
NM 4 DQ 4 mn 4 7 | 
Nepty Uleoes| ewan! as Sept. [ees |e 15 Sept. 14... 14 14 Sept. 14...| i4 15 
1+ 16 14 10 ips 10 1¢ 14 
1 9 IY 9h 1 15 i] 14 
2] 10 14 | 14 it | i6 14 15 
1+ 13 Q 16 ] 14 14 1153 
14 14 2 15 1d 13 i 9+ 
1 12 24 15 14 14 2 12 
1 14 14 12 2 12) 14 i 
1 15 1+ 14 Qt 13 14 15 
14 13 14 9+ 24 16 1 16 
ON eas 1) &) 14 | 10 3 at 
1 9 2 | 16 iz |) iil 1 12 
2] 10 Tal ays 12 | 10 1 14 
14 13} 1k 13 2 12 1 12 
Q gt oF | i Q 14 1 14 
2 12 24 13 1d 15 2 12 
Q 11 “ 2 14 1 12 14 14 
Tee || als; 1 |) 3 2 10 1} gt 
14 14 14 15 i 14 1 12 
98] 15 14] 14 i | io) 1} 12 
te) 8 1i | 192 1 | 10 2 gL 
14 14 1 10 1 9 uae 1 114 
1 15 14 14 £ 8 2 12 
We) iil 1 12 £ 8 2 14 
] 10 1 13 1 12 1 14 
i 164 13 gt 14 15 i 14 
2 12 14 104 2 91 1 15 
1 13 2 12 1 14 1i 13 
i || a a1] 13 14] 15 2 14 
14 12 2 12 1 12 1 14 
1t 14 1k 15 1¢ 114 1 15 
13 | i 1i | 16 g 8 2 13 
2 13 1L 17 1 11 Be 14 
IBS || ale! if 14 14 10 ||Sept. 15... 1 14 
14 15 ) 1 9 14 14 1d 15 
1+ 12 14 14 2 g 14 16 
2 10 1 16 QL 9h 1 17 
i 1 1 12 1 lL 1 gL 
14| 12 Te | 15 1t | 12 14 14 
1: 13 14 12 1+ 14 2 94 
i 11 al 14 14 115) 2 12 
eval) aint 2 ot 2 QL 1 14 
1£ 12 2 14 2 16 1 15 
1¢ 12 24 15 14 12 2 10 
14/ 11 ] 12 Te 15 2 114 
14 al 14 13 1t 14 14 14 
12} 13 2 15 14 144 1} 15 
1 gt Q1| 16 | eee 1 13 
1 1G yon 1 g4 2 10 1 15 
ol 4 12] 92 u gt 14 16 
1 12 9 = 1 12 2 12 
al 14 14 12 1 14 iL 11 
1 164 14 15 14 15 1 , 2 
2, 12 12 16 1+ 16 1 14 
1 16 2 15 1 12 1 118} 
14 13 JI 14 1t 16 13 14 
1+ 14 14 15 14 12 17 16 
1 12 1 16 i 11 i 9 
Sept. 14.... 1 12 11 14 14 9 3 10 
13] 14 Q OL ie || a@ 1 14 
at 15 2 10 1} 9 1 12 
13 | 16 1¥ | 15 2 12 14 14 
1¢ 13 2 13 14 14 1 ies 
2g 94 23 14 il ie 1 11 
2 16 14 16 1 12 iy 10 
1 15 1 14 £ 8 14 9 
12] 12 1p 13 1 12 2 11 
14 10 2 14 14 14 1} 9 
14) 82 9) | 14 1 15 a4 13 
j+ 16 1 12 3 9 1 12 
14] 14 14+] 13 3 gL 1 9 
ii 8 2 14 4 10 Qt 13 
l 9 Ie 15 3 ali 2 14 
il 8 TG Spt TG 1 15 
£ et 1} 12 ] 12 a! 12 
2 19 94 1t 14 1¢ 10 
1 12 14 14 Q 10 if liz 
|| ae: 14 | 12 or | 14 1 14 


154 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Native cattle—Continued. 


MALE AND FEMALE, 


3 a a 
5 Zz S zB 5 = 
Date. d 5 Date. Ea 5) Date. 2 3 Date. 
a 2 a Si a 2 
M | I RM 4 M =| 
Sept: dbsere| eal 17 || Sept. 16...) 1 14 |) Sept, 17-2.) | 1d) Jig |) Sept. 1s... 
He || 1G 14] 15 1 12 
5s gt 1 123 2 13% 
£| 12 1g) 15 13 13 
$ | 10 1 10 | oath 
12) 14 1 12 ij 4 
14] 14 1 13 2 12 
il 15 1 14 WEI) 18} 
) 14 1 9 14 14 
it 1 cee 2) 12 Sept. 23... 
1 12 | 1 74 4 | 11 
il 13 2 15 1 12 1 
13 | 14 14 |] 13 2 15 2 
1 11 ee || sat ) 13 14 
il 8 1 12 ] 9 1 
£) gf 1 13 1} 12 14 
2 14 14} 11 oy 2 
14 | 16 1 13 14)" 13 1g 
1 13 2 14 2 14 i 
14] 12 14 9 Qt) 15 14 
I NOW| \sSepte L7see|\ 2 15 1 10 Ht 
1 ope 22) 14 Q 12 14 
2 1l 1 14 14] 14 1 
Qi] 12 Q 14 |I 1 12 14 
il 14 2 16 || Sept. 18...) 1 14 13 
iF | 12 2D 15 14} 15 1 
1 11 2 14 1 8s 14 
13 | 14 It | 12 1a) aS 2 
1 12 Q 15 13 114 D) 
2 11 2 16 Q 9 12 
14 9 14] 14 1 12 1 
$ 2 1 15 2) 13 14 
t 8 2) 13 2 15 1 
2) 9 Q 143 1 12 14 
Ora me Q 15 1 ‘9 2 
1 114 eae 14 | 14 1 
13 9 1 et 14} 12 14 
ae Ie sie 1 gt Ts ty ate) 1 
14] 15 | 9 14} 14 2 
Sept, 16: seeii 0 a 8 14 | 10 8: 13 14 
1 || 1 8 14] 13% 1 
it 8 £ 93 1 ) 1 
Iz] ga 1 7 1 11 2 
#/ 8 4g ve} 2 14 4 
1 9} 1 9 14 15 Sept. 24..- 14 
1 wv | 1 82 1S | eG iz 
14 74 1 8 1 13 ii 
1 14 cy 9 Q 11 1 
14] 15 14} 10 ia ||| aa 14 
J$ | 1423 1 7 1 13 1 
ie) Til 12 et 1 15 1? 
12 at 1 8 1g] 133 1 
1i 9 es 9 14 16 14 
1) al 13 8 . 1 9s 1 
| 3 14] 12 1¢ 9 ; 1 
14] 16 14) 12 2 12 12 
2 14 | Dy) 14 2 12 1 
1 11 Ee |) 8} Q 15 1 
2 11 1 9 Q} | 14 1 
14) 11 1 12 Teo 14 1 
1 13 1 15 2 144 14 
2 12 1k | 14 Q 16 1} 
1 13 2 13 1i 15 1 
1 17 14 | 134 14] 13 1 
|) NG 1 12 ] 12 1£ 
Q 14 14] 13 1 10 14 
13] 17 i | 15 | 14 1 
Tey goa: 1 16 2 13 i 
1i| 9 | 2 2 15 14 
14 | 16 te ale! ei It 
Q 164 14 | 16 14 16 1k 
] 18 il 12 1 12 1 
12 | 14 2 12 Iz} 13 2 
1) 13 1 gt | 2 14 2 
13 | 16 TBS P13 Qi] 16 2 
1 13 13) 14 1% | 134 14 
2 16 2 12 2 14 aps 


OO EEE EE EE ee 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 


Native cattle—Continued. 


MALE AND FEMALE. 


155 


a : é ; é . a ; 

ae Bl as a z Sal) 

Date. 3 © Date. 3 3g Date. S ® Date. z a) 

ee alles e z a & 

mM 4 wn =) mn | mM | 

Sept. 24.... 12 | 16 Sept. 25... dee) 2 Sept. 25... IPs 11 Sept. 25-.- 1 11 
14 | 14 Tes, ak 1 11 1 8 

Q 16 14) 10 ee | Tp 1 8 
14] 15 . 1 12 14| 10 1 104 

] 16 14 | 12 ies 8 1} 11 

10 |) ai 1 13 ed ae 2 9 

1 16 14) 12 14 9 Q 11 

iL |) ales Q 13 1 10 14 11 
1 14 2 11 14} 11 1k 12 
1 15 93 / 13 1 12 1 9 
ee |) a0) 1 10 Q 11 1 12 
Ta |e 1 12 14) 14 4 13 
1 13 Q 15 1 15 1 12 
14 |$ 12 134| 14 1 10 13} «14 
ee | Ties 1 12 14} 12 ] 12 
1 16 1 11 ne || ig} 14 13 
1 12 14 | 10 14) 14 1 14 
14 | 92 1 9 1 14 1 12 
14 | 12 14] 12 1 11 1 14 
1 14 1 8 1 194 | 2 15 
1 15 13 8 1 11 13 38 

ap ual aD) ean) 1 112 
1 94 Te) ail TS dO a eelotslueeee 1, 9634 16, 6793 
ca ail 1 13 ie) a1} = 
Sept. 25.... 3t | 13h 1 gi 13 12 Average --|]. 467 |12. 466 
Cherokee cattle. 
MALE, 
| 

Nept; Secs 2 10 || Sept. 13..- - 8 || Sept. 14... 25 12 | Sept. 15... Qs 13 
1 10 14 12 31 11 2 12 
Q 10 ) 13 10 3 14 1k 1L 
14 12 Qa 12 14 10 14 11 
2 9 2 12 ) 9 2 13 
1 ii Qn 10 3 10 12 9 
Q 10 |) o1 14 Qt 9 14 9 
13 8 || it lI 3 12 1: 8 
Sept, 9: s2:- 2 10 14 9 2 11 14 11 
14 9 || 4 12 2 10 13 12 
2 10 Q 15 2 10 2 12 
2 13 14 10 3 10 14 11 
1 8 2 14 || Sept. 15-..| 14 8 14 12 
‘ 1¢ 8 14 12 14 7 2 13 
Sept. 10....) 13 7 ies 10 14 8 1k 9 
14 9 14 10 2 12 Iz 10 
2 12 2 12 14 13 2 1l 
13 By), Qu 15 14 9 14 12 
13 / 2 10 2 13 14 10 
14 9 || 13 12 | 14 9 94 14 
14 13 || 12 13 2 10 4 10 
ik 8 || 2 13 2 10 13 11 
1 8 it 12 Q 10 4 11 
14 10 Q4 16 QL 12 14 TL 
14 ll Q 12 Q 13 1i 10 
14 10 1k 9 2 12 13 11 
13 11 Q 12 14 11 1k 12 
2 10 || 13 14 2 12 ii 10 
1 10: || Sept. 14...) 24 14 2 12 4 9 
13 10 || Q 12 | 14 11 14 13 
Qn 14 || 14 9 13 10 4 12 
1} 14 || 14 13 14 11 2 13 
14 10 14 10 1+ 10 14 13 
Sept. 13:5--| i 12 14 13 13 11 14 11 
14 13 ips 12 Q 12 14 9 
14 14 14 10 Q 12 if 1l 
Q 13 4 10 Q 12 14 10 
24 10 14 10 1} 11 14 11 
D) 12 2 14 14 9 2 13 
2 12 134 10 14 8 Q 12 
2 13 4 12 Q 1l 14 11 
1 12 Qn 15 14 11 14 9 
13] eS 14 il 14 12 14 9 
14 10 | 2 10) 2 12 14 1 
14 10 | 2 ll 14 lL 2 13 


156 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Cherokee cattle—Continued. 


MALE, 
a a ca a 
f= mn S m a m a nm 
Date. o 5 Date. 3 3 Date. 3 3 Date. % 5 
a 2 eo i = a = P 
NM = MN 4 2) 4 M Hw 
| 
Sept. 15.2...) 184) fa" ||Sent, 18.2) er HF |leSepte (Seas) emcee eel Ni Sept, sae ame 8 | 
Q 13 1 7 il 13 il 9 | 
Q 12 1 9 5) ¥ 14 7 | 
) 13 14| 13 Qt 14 5 | 
14 11 Q 14 Q 13 14 fT | 
OL 14 teet| seal Qn 11 1 6 | 
Q 13 iat ee Q 12 1 5 
12 14 14} 8 14 10 1 7 
Q 13 1 8 1k 10 14 8 
2 13 iCall» a2) 13 10 = 1 9 
Q 12 | 9 14 iL 1 7 
ee 10 1 8 Q 11 14 8 
14 11 i 9 OL 12 1k 9 
ik 12 13 11 Qi 14 il 9 
14 9 te, Qt 14 14 10 
14 10 1 7 14 10 1t 10 
Q 11 1 9 Q 12 1 8 | 
Sept. 18.-..|/ 14 a 14 10 Q 12 | 1 7 
1 7 1 |) @) 1 11 | 1 6 
13 8 1 | . 13 14 10 1 5 
1 7 1 11 14 13 14 Zk 
1 5 ib |). ikl 2 ll 1 8 
1 7 1 11 Qt 13 1 6 
1 g 14 | 10 2 12 | 1k 7 
13 8 1) peli 2 12 | 14+ 9 
1 1 Q 13 Q 13 | 1 8 
1 7 2 12 2 13 14 7 
Q 9 1 11 13 11 | 14 7 
14 8 2 12 1 11 | il 8 
1 7 1k 13 14 13 | 14 9 
1 6 2 9 14 10 | 1k 8 
14 9 1 7 1 9) 14 7 
Q 10 es 8 1 8 | 14 9 
14 9 ij 9 1 11 1 8 
1 7 14 9 14 13 || Sept. 25...| 14 9 
14 10 13 9 1 ) 14 itis 
1 8 1 8 1 10 Q 12 
14 7 1 "Ff 14 10 14 9 
Q 10 iL 8 14 lL 1 8 
2 12 1 8 14 11 | 14 9 
1 7 14 9 4 8 | 0) 11 
1 9 2 10 1 FF 14 10 
i4 11 14 1L res 8 Q 12 
1 12 Q 13 14 9 | = ; 
9 | 12 1 7 1 g ||) Dotelen =| Uta) emer 
14 12 14 8 1 i) Average..| 1.60 | 10.335 
FEMALE, 
| !| {| 
epte cere 1k LG Septal OSs |i TOM ESept ase. a2 15 || Sept. 14...) 12 9 
14 10 | 13 12 ie 10 | 1k 8 
2 10 |} |r| 14 8 14 10 
Q 9 || Tee Sy Q 11 2 12 
1 Ze 14 9 || 2 12 23 11 
1 10 || 1 7 Qt 13 Q Tt 
Q 10 | 14 13 || Sept. 14...| 14 13 94 9 
) 9 14 10 || 14 15 | 13 8 
2 8 it 12 ik 14 | 2 10 
Rijn Oones- 1 5 14 10 14 12 | Q 10 
14 9 1 11 14 13 | 14 10 
1 6 1 7 pe 10 | Qh 9 
14 12 1k 9 14 10 14 8 
14 12 14 9 14 11 | Qh 9 
Q 10 || 14 10 4 16 | 13 8 
2 12aiSeptyl3ees| eee 15 1} 14 Qi 14 
14 9 9} 12 14 10 | 14 9 
14 9 14 8 14 10 14 11 
ii 12 2 12 | 14 10 13 8 
1 8 24 i4 Q 13 Q4 9 
1 5 2 10 14 12 : Q 10 
Q 10 14 12 ik 12 | 14] - ll 
14 10 4 13 14 10 || Sept. 15...| 14 11 
14 8 Q 14 14 12 | i4 10 
Sept. 10....| 14 14 Qh 18 14 13 | 1 9 


2 $_———E————_e eee 


== 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 157 


Cherokee cattle—Continued. 


FEMALE. 
an mn wa wa 
| an =| wn =| wn - a wn 
Date. 3 5 Date. o a Date. 3 5 Date. 3 3 
a e a e e& E a ‘ 
RM | M 4 RM 4 RM | 

Sept. 15... 1 Geileseptitose ie Ie elsmlSeptatooe |) 9 ta ait Sept. 18... 1 12 
{4 TBE ] 9 13 12 14 IL 
14 lal 14 10 1} 1h 14 9 
Ue 12 ad 1t 10 14 10 al 7 
2 12 14 11 14 10 14 8 
Q 13 1 9 1¢ 11 14 9 
2 12 1 al 14 12 13 uf 
4 14 14 12 Sept. 18... 14 d1 1 9 
14 11 ify 12 1 9 il 8 
14 il 14 11 . 14 13 14 9 
eS |) Tl iPS |) “ail 1¢| 13 = 
14 12 14 10 1} 11 Total.... 241 | 1.611 
| 12 1H | dt 14 | 12 s 
Ts 12 iy |) ul 14] 13 Average.| 1.585 | 10.6 

MALE AND FEMALE, 

Aug. 20.... 3 9 || Sept. 3....) 14 9) || Sept. 3--..| 2%) 20 Sept. 42... 14 9 
3h 8 Q 10 De 9 14 11 
3 12 Be 11 24 9 Qt 12 
QF 10 Qt 10 Bes 9 24 12 
2 if p} 11 2 8 22 11 
2Q3 9 24 10 2s 9 Qt 1) 
a 12 Qh 13 3 10 It 9 
3 et Ore 10 23 10 14 9 
3 11 Qt 12 2 9 2 10 
3 92 2 10 Qt 9 2t 12 

Sept. 2..... 3 gh Thos 2k | 16 14 a 
33 iil 2 12 2 12 14 11 
3 11 23 13 Qt 15 24 12 
Qt 10 Q4 10 4 13 Qt 12 
3 gz Q 13 2 10 2h 12 
Qh 9 \ Q 10 2 11 Qt 1l 
3 9 a1 | 12 2 | 10 1 9 
3 10 24 13 3 11 1t 9 
3 104 a 10 3 12 2 1l 
3 9 | 9 2 9 2h 10 
3s 9 13 10 2 15 Qt 1l 

Sept. 3..... 21 | 10 See aul zh | 12 2 ll 
QL 115} 1% ll 2 13 2 i, 
ys 10 or 12 Qt 12 2 9 
Cia ga 24} 11 Qi | 12 2 10 
QF 14 oa 10 2 11 14 9 
14 10 QL 12 3 apt Qt 11 
14 11 2S 1L 14 12 24 10 
a1 | 12 14] 10 || Sept. 4....| 2] 12 Qh 10 
or 11 1} 12 2 10 24 12 
es 13 or 12 Dre 11 Q4 11 
2H) 14 ips 10 2h 13 23 13 
Qr 12 Pes 11 2 9 Qt 11 
2 13 at 12 1} 8 2 10 
a1 | 13 21) 10 1-9 2 2 
Qt 14 QL 8 14 8 1¢ 9 
QL 14 Qh 8 14 10 1d iL 
Qt 13 Qh 9 2 11 1? 10 
22 | 12 23 | 10 ai | 12 Qh 13 
2 14 Qt 9 24 12 Sept. 6.... 2 13 
Qt 13 Qh 10 at ati 2t 13 
an) 13 a] 8 ¥ 2 9 2 2 
2F 14 24 10 2b 12 2} 13 
23 13 Qt 10 24 10 iv 11 
24 13 22 9 2 9 2 10 
24 14 Q4 8 14 8 1+ 10 
a1 | 13 21 | 10 2i) 12 1} 8 
21] 13 Or ae Peleg res 9 
24 13 2 8 2 12 14 Vl 
2 10 Qt 8 14 10 Qt 13 
2s 11 o4 10 2 12 Bas 13 
2 1L Qh 9 ae 11 24 12 
a: | 12 21 | 10 at | 11 2 10 
HB} 11 at} 9 a1 | 12 2 9 
2 10 Qt 8 23 a Dire 12 
Qt 13 Qt 8 2 oI 25 11 
24 | 11 Q4 9 14 9 24 13 
Qh Qh 9 2 8 ii 9 


158 


Cherokee cattle—Continued. 


DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


MALE AND FEMALE. 


Date. 


Spleens. 


Date. 


Date. »« 


Date. 


th 


sR eR eR ee 


WUWNUWNWNWNMNNWNNHWNNNNWE WD 
} Re ee ee ee he 


she eee 


DH Hw? 
FF pata 


a 


cf 


) 
Bp oh bp 


MAM WDOWDH —KH WA 
ee Re ee ARR 


$a 


WIDIMMAMMOMW 2 
teh Bt to ee ea 2 top toe 


Sept. 7..-- 


Sept. 10... 


Sept. 11... 


Sept. 14... 


Be RE eee ep pen 


£9 2D 0D 0D DD CO HW CO 09 09 09 0 09 19 09 09 
pes woes bbe 


eh 


ee 


Wot) oe ROD 


~ 
kop es EE 


Wits 
eh Ge 


Se ee Ee ee I CORO e 
I 


TS) pales Mefos nope ne pes nches 


_ 
es 


I 
Sx) 
os 


ra 


cc 


_ 
oO 


Sept. 14... 


Sept. 16... 


Sept. 17... 


ed 


ee 
ISERIES RS BS tape tL es tee EE SB 


HEE RS Bp Lom to ta foe pe tS to BS tp 


COCO RROD BH 0 
Ae 6 om 


wp 


es tp spe 


oe 


te ee 


1p t= wp 


a 
CMoenmicmes 


we 


Oo C2 TD DD GO 9 1D 5 CO 09 09 2D Hw We GO WO SO 
=) 


Senta dvaee 


Sept. 18... 


Sept. 23... 


Sept. 24... 


Motalee=. 


Average. 


ewe 


2 291 09 9 


Depend eee 


Sept. 10... 


Teran 


cattle. 


MALE. 


te he 


eR 


cs 


he Rl he 


2D 68 9 29 29 1 29.29 9 29.29 WI 2919 


“e 


| Sept. 10. ..| 


DAD 1D 1D 1D WW OO 
nee 


eh eee 


he 


ree 


WW 74 


Sept. 10_..| 
| 


Sept. 11...) 


| 
| 


Spleens. 


7D Wt 
zy 


eee ee 


Rete 


Ke 


Bee 


ee 


to 


ER Ce Co CoE OT EOE BSS CRT ee CIE 
p ne 


ue 


02 69 69 29 69 09 69 19 29 
ee 


20 
Wie ee ce He 


ue 


QO DD DD WO CO RB CO 


1 ees 


wake eee 


EEO ee 


WP epee 


9 09 29 C9 09 2919.19 CY ODT EH tO TD 
S : 


Ee ee 


SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 159 


Texan cattle—Continued. 


MALE. 
- | - . . 
m mm ™m m 
q wa =| m =] ma a n 
Date. & 5 Date. a) 3 Date. 3 3 Date. eo 5 
eS 2 e ley a fe i Ei 
Wear) i a) | DR 4 wm BK 
Sepia lies |ens 14 | Sepi loee-i a 16 || Sept. 16...| 2 14) Sept. 18-:-| 3 1l 
3 12 | Qh 15 14 iL OL 12 
3 125) 2 12 14 12 14 11 
3 12>) = Bl) ie Q 12 2 12 
3 12 | 13 10 2 13 3 13 
3 14 | 2 11 Qn 15 24 11 
24 13 | 3 13 QL 15 3 12 
24 12 | 3 12 Q1 13 2h 10 
3 14 2 9 3 14 3 11 
3h 13 3 12 Q 15 2 10 
Qn 12 | 12 9 | 13 Qh 12 
Q4 11 2 10 ai 13 Q ll 
34 14 Qn 13 94 12 Qt 13 
a4 10 | 14 12 2 12 3 10 
Qh 14 2 12 OL 12 2 15 
25 12 | Qn 13 Q ll 24 9 
21 | 10 2 12 9 12 2 
ped) aul 34 10 24 13 3 13 
O41 10 | 2 11 ot 12 13 8 
3 13 | 3 13 2 13 2 10 
3 14 | aa] 12 9 14 3 15 
3 12 | Q 12 Qt 13 3 13 
34 13 | 3 13 Qt 12 3 15 
Qh 14 2 15 | 2 14 3 10 
Q 13 | |) 2 2 13 3 12 
pe 14 2 11 2 12 Qt 15 
2 13 3h 10 2 13 2 12 
24 13 3 12 2 12 3 13 
a4 12 | 23 13 14 11 2 12 
2 9 | 3 10 14 11 3 11 
Sept. 13... 3 14 | QL 9 14 10 4 12 
24 13 | Qi 12 Q 12 oF 10 
2 13 3 13 2 15 3 if 
3 14 24 15 Qt 14 2a 13 
Qe 11 ‘ Q 10 2} 13 2 10 
34 16 3 12 2 13 3 13 
3 Qi | o4 15 2 12 ot il 
Q 10 | 3 10 4] 11 3 10 
3 12 | Q4 13 14 10 or 12 
3 13 || Sept. 16... ox 14 14 10 3 3 
24 12 2 15 14 11 Q 10 
34] 13 3 15 14 12 PEs lL 
3 13 | QL 12 14 ll 3 13 
Qh 16 | 2 13 wy} 12 Q 13 
2 12 | 2 12 1 ll 1 il 
OR 14 Q 13 1 12 i 11 
3 13 | 2 12 2 13 1t 13 
24 12 QL 13 3 14 13 10 
3 13 | 13 11 o4 13 | 1 9 
24 10 | 2 12 QL 13 1 8 
2 12% 2 13 2 13 1 1L 
2 14 Q 3 2 13 14 13 
=e pe Qi 13 Q 13 2 13 
Bolt ae 2 12 Q 13 ot 12 
3a 15 || 2 13 1g 12 2 13 
Sept. 14....! 92 10 | 24 14 2 13 14 ll 
3 12 | Q 13 2 13 2 13 
3 14 Q 14 2 13 Q 13 
33 13 | 2 14 14 11 oF 12 
QL 10 | 2 14 14 11 14 | 1 
Pes 11 2 13 14 11 | | 10 
3 12 Qh 14 13 12 a: 12 
23 | 10 oR 14 Q 1] Q 14 
Sept, 15....! 92 24 | a 13 34 13 14 13 
23 12 94 13 2 11 | 2 13 
23 10 24 14 14 13 | 3 14 
24 11 | 2 13 2 13 3 13 
2 13 | Q4 14 14 13 3 13 
31 | 24| 13 || Sept. is...| 3 | 10 24 13 
3t | 14) S 12 34 | 13 2 12 
Q4 10 | 2 12 ot 15 | 23 12 
Hee || UG) Q 13 Qt 12 1 11 
2 8 2 13 3 13 13 12 
3 13 | o4 13 2 16 24 13 
Qh 15 | Q 13 14 15 2 13 
24 13 | 2 12 3 13 13 14 
lee U0N| a 223 laa 2 | 10 14 LB 
Qh) 12) 2 | 13 3) 16 2 14 


160 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Texan cattle—Continued. 


MALE, 
wa Dn wn n 
=| m [= mn a n a m 
Date. = 5 Date. 2 5 Date. 3 5 Date. 3 3 
a ei a B = z a = 
mM =) M = nm 4 M 4 
Sept. 18....| 24 TSA eSentael Game meee 12 || Sept. 24...| 2% 14 || Sept. 25...| 24 13 
2 14 2 11 2 13 2 14 
14 13 24 13 Qh 14 24 12 
14 14 14 lL Qt 14 Q 13 
Q 13 14 ll 2 13 Q 12 
2 14 2 12 2 12 14 13 
Qh 15} 2 12 Qt 14 1 9 
2 13 14 12 OL 13 14 10 
14 14 1 ll 2 14 ies 12 
1 12 14 12 Qn 14 i 9 
14 13 Q 13 Dy) 13 14 12 
Q 11 14 11 3 15 2 13 
Qh 13 14 11 Qh 14 Q 12 
Q 13 Q 13 3 15 QL 14 
2 11 2 TOD ESept25ees pees 10 Q 13 
u 12 2 11 1 12 Qt 14 
2 14 2 il 2 11 Q 13 
14 13 Qh 12 2 13 14 10 
2 14 2 13 2 15 14 11 
2 13 Qu ll 2D 10 Q 12 
Qh 12 at 13 Qh 13 4 11 
2 13 14 y b) 13 14 10 
14 ll 1 10 1 11 Qt 13 
14 10 13 11 Q 12 Q 12 
Q 13 14 9 2) 13 14 12 
QL 14 14 12 Qh 13 2 13 
Q 13 || Sept. 24...| 2% 14 Q 12 soa SS 
Qt 13 2 13 14 Tl} Motalls eee. 1, 1093! 6, 070 
2 12 2 14 1 10 | —— 
2 11 2 15 24 13 || Average. -/2.259 | 12.36 
Q ll 2 13 Q 12 
FEMALE. | 
Sept. 8....- Qh 11 || Sept. 8.--.| 23 15 || Sept. 8-..-| 3 ISESepeloee 3 13 | 
Qt 10 3 12 || He eet 13 || Qh 12 | 
2 10 Qt 16 | 23 16 eee 
Q 12 2h 14 || Sept. 10-..| 2 Tiley] TS 558- 64 360 | 
Qi| 12 2 15. || 14 9 | es 
25 10 2h 13 2 10 Average . -|2. 387 | 12.415 | 
2 10 3 16 2 10 
2 1] Qh 15 | 14 10 | 
3 13 QE 16 2 10 | | 
MALE AND FEMALE. | 
s 
Sais Doaace 3 TQ HN Septs Qasee| boii lide Sept. 4ccse|heeoan | meleenl Sept nemo s| meee =18} 
3 102 4 13 13 |] 13 3 14 
3 gi 33 | 10 Q 15 Qh 13 
4 12 381) a 2 12 Qh 12 
3 11 34 9 2 13 Qh Til 
3 10 31] 10 Qi | 15 2 10 
oy | 12 3 104 3 12 Qt 13 
3 12 3% | 11 3 ll Qt 12 
3 11 3 10 3 12 Qh 13 
3 114 3 10 3 10 Q 10 
Qi} 10 32) 11 3 10 Qt 13 
93 | 10 ot 9 3 12 Qt 14 
Qa} 11 33 | 112 Qa 9 Qn 12 
a] 11 Qn i) Q1 | 12 2 14 
We Mo "Sept: 4-22.) ) 2 10 Q 13 Qh 13 
i) 8 12 2 11 3 10 Qh. 12 
34] 10 } 3 12 3 12 2 13 
Spies lf ark 21] 10 2 12 Q 11 
Shetty De esae 23 gt IE |} tl) Qe) 12 | Qt 14 
3 104 o] 11 Q 10 2 13 
Q4 | 11 ) 12 2 10 Qt 13 
23 | 13 Qh] 16 2h) 12 Qt 13 
3 12 2 14 24 | 12 Q 14 
93 | J1 24 | 10 Q 12 Q 14 
24 Sun 2 12 Qt} 14 Q 13 z 


a 


_SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 161 


Texan cattle—Continued. 


MALE AND FEMALE. 


= 2 | S a 
=| n a mn A mn =| a 
Date. Ey 5 Date. «2 5 Date. 3 5 Date. 3 S 
yh 2 a ei a Z 2B 2 
mM =) RN 4 MD 4 va) = 
Sept. 4..... ge 4) "Sept, 6s---i) 22] is) ||"Sept, Ge.—4| 1.8 133 All| Staiste Wasedl 8} 
ai] 14 Qi] 13 34] 10 QL 13 
Q 1l aL) 14 3 10 Qh 16 
Qt) 14 ai} 13 3h 94 14 12 
Qi] 14 a1] 13 4 10 Qh 10 
2} 13 23] 14 34 | 11 3 12 
Qi} 12 P) LD Septadeees| oes 94 Qt 13 
211] 10 21 | 14 34 | 10 Q 13 
at] IL Qt) 14 | 3 104 24 10 
Qi] 14 2 12 4 9} at 12 
Qi] 14 Qi | 14 4h 9f 2h 113 
ai | 12 gi] 13 3 10 13 24 
Qt | 10 1 | 14 oF | 1a 2 13 
Qi) 12 2% | 15 23 9 || Sept..8....| 3 12 
3+ | 13 21 | 13 Q 8h 34 iit 
Qi] 13 Qt.) 14 3h 94 4 94 
Qi} 14 - Ee ||. 1B} Qi | 14 3 OF 
2) 13 23 | 14 Sept. 72...| 24] 14 Sept. 9....] 23 101 
at] 13 a 13 Q 12 34 9 
91] 12 Qi] 14 or 14 33 10 
ai| 13 95°) 13 ai} 12 4 9h 
21] 10 Qi} 14 Qk] 14 4h 11 
21 | 10 24] 15 By || ie) 3t 11 
al | 74 Q 12 2t | 13 || Sept. 11...) 3 9 
a1} 13 Qi ]| 12 ) 9 Q3 84 
Qi} 12 Qt | 13 23 | 10 1 14 
Qt | 13 23 | 12 ON al} 33 10 
Qi] 14 Be || als OFS 4 ll 
ot] 13 Q 10 24 | 14 34 92 
at | 12 2i| 12 3 13 3h 12 
21] 13 23 | 10 4 15 34 9 
palsy 3 103 | ar 14 34 11 
Qi | 14 3%] 112 | Cra 3 10 
ai | 13 Qt] 11g oF! 15 33 12 
Q1| 14 1 4 10 ne! 3 8 
ai| 14 Q gk | ai} 14 S| heen 9 
2 10 2h Om ou} 14 ES 
pee || ii 34 | 113 3 aa |eRotallesee 701 | 3,139 
21! 13 23] 114 34] 14 = 
oe) Ip) 3 i” | 25 | 13 Average. .|2. 675 | 11.98 
Sept. 6-.... 23} 14 33] 12 Q1 | 14 
Qi | i4 Qi} 12 2 11 


GENERAL REMARKS ON THE CATTLE DISEASES 
REPORTED ON, 


BY JOHN GAMGEEH, M. D. 


The diseases of cattle which form the subjects of the three reports 

herewith published are typical of three distinct classes of disorders 
which tend to the impoverishment of the farmer and the country at 
large. . 
The first and simplest inits origin and character is an enzootic or indigen- 
ous affection, localized in corn-rearing States and districts, where, under 
the influence of abundant moisture, and inattention to conditions which 
prevent the propagation of parasitic plants on the farmer’s crops. a fungus 
is formed which destroys the nutritive value of cornstalks and grain. 
These become indigestible, induce impaction of the third stomach and 
constipation, which speedily terminate in death. The malady is not pro- 
pagated beyond the farm or stable where the diseased fodder is supplied 
to stock. 

The third is the American cattle plague of 1868, which, from an igno- 
rance of its origin and nature, created serious loss, and, what is proba- 
bly as bad, a panic that cannot readily be forgotten, on both sides of the 
Atlantic. Its study has revealed characters hitherto unknown or unde- 
scribed in relation to any disease of man or animals. The facts rendered 
show that it is developed in the hotter parts of the United States bor- 
dering on the Gulf coast where lands are rich, retentive, undrained, and 
constitute the hotbeds of malarious or periodic diseases in the human 
family. Unlike these, so far as present knowledge goes, it is capable of 
propagation in an intensified form among cattle which feed on pas- 
tures traversed, in any part of the country beyond the original centers 
of development, by southern herds. It is not improbable that compara- 
tive pathology may here shed light on the precise nature of remittent 
and intermittent fevers in man; and the fact that these have not been 
observed to extend by a form of contagion may be explained by the con- 
ditions essential to the propagation of the bovine periodic fever. Large 
masses of animals have to travel fresh from the breeding grounds of this 
indigenous disease, and discharge large quantities of excrement on the 
food which is the carrier of the morbid material into the systems of cat- 
tle that are contaminated and die. It is true that anthrax, Siberian boil 
plague, or carbuncular fevers generally, from a peculiar decomposition in 
the liquids and tissues of the affected animals, are capable of being trans- 


REMARKS ON THE CATTLE DISEASES, 163 


ferred by its inoculation under favorable circumstances, to healthy people, 
and indeed to all warm-blooded creatures; but there are indigenous mal- 
adies, somewhat allied to the splenic fever of cattle, developed under like 
conditions, and capable of moderate extension from the districts where 
they originate spontaneously. But the cattle in the south are affected 
with a malady that is not inoculable, that is not propagated by the bites 
of insects and by the transference of decomposed or poisoned blood and 
tissues into the structures of healthy men or animals, and manifests in its 
method of propagation more of the features of cholera than of other prop- 
erly recorded malady. Itdoesnot belong tothe group of epizooties proper, 
or contagious diseases like pleuro-pneumonia, rinderpest, and the varied 
forms of variola. It is not an infectious disease; and the single observa- 
tion reported by the New York commissioners cannot outweigh the hun- 
dreds we have observed and carefully traced, and which indicate that the 
cattle are not discharging, by their breath or skin, into the air around 
them, the principles capable of perpetuating the malady. The plagues 
proper spread regardless of soil, climate, food, geological formation, 
altitude, &e., wherever sick animals approach or touch healthy ones. 
Splenic fever is not communicated by a cow to its calf, and is absolutely 
stopped by a fence, unless some accident leads to the mingling together 
of the southern animals with others they are capable of injuring. The 
malady, engendered with peculiar virulence in western or eastern cattle, 
is not, unless exceptionally—and no properly attested exception has 
come to my knowledge—communicated by these to other amimals that 
have not traversed the trails of Texan and other southern herds. It is a 
modification, a poisoning of the food and possibly of the water tainted 
by the manure of the southern cattle, whereby the malady is transmitted. 
It is thus with human cholera. I do not wish it to be understood that 
splenic fever is at all allied to cholera beyond the peculiar and ordinary 
method of propagation from certain centers. We know nothing of 
the spontaneous development of cholera and the centers whence it 
springs. We can witness the independent and primary production of 
the Texas or Florida fever by transporting western or eastern cattle to 
the south, where, fed on the pastures apart from other animals, they con- 
tract the disease and die. 

Annually the Texan steers suffer, so far as my observations on cattle of 
all ages go, from this same local influence, which, in their acclimatized 
systems, does not usually lead to death. There is doubtless something 
tangible and ponderable, which some future chemist may reveal, that ren- 
ders the grasses, and maybe the waters, of the south so deleterious. 

The disease, therefore, to which the third of the annexed reports refers, 
is an indigenous or enzodtic malady, susceptible of moderate extension 
by the manner in which the grasses of healthy regions are modified by 
the manure scattered broadcast from the systems of southern herds. It 
is not a contagious plague, and will probably cease when the agriculture 
of the south is fairly and fully developed. 


164 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Not so with the destructive malady the lung plague, or epizodtic 
pleuro-pneumonia, which is silently but seriously ravaging the Kastern 
States. This affection constitutes the subject of my second report. Its 
method of propagation, by diffusion through the air of a specific animal 
poison or virus, offers an instructive contrast to the comparatively harm- 
less disease of the south. The lung plague kills slowly and surely wher- 
ever it penetrates, without regard to latitude, breeds, soils, conditions of 
weather, or systems of cultivation. It can be stamped out; and its propa- 
gation in a mild form may be resorted to for the protection of cattle that 
have been suspected of entering an infected area. It attacks animals 
but once in their lifetime, and presents all the characters of specific erup- 
tive fevers, of which the human or ovine small-pox may be regarded 
typical. ; 


A few words may not be considered inappropriate as to the nature of 


our investigations. They have extended over a period of ten months, 
and in all parts of the United States except in the far west. The furthest 
point west we have reached has been near the terminus of the Kan- 
sas Pacific railroad, and southwest to Corpus Christi. The great object 
in view has been to determine and demonstrate with precision the causes 
and signs of the several diseases examined, with a view to the sugges- 
tion of means of prevention and cure. The history of special outbreaks, 
the methods of extension, the essential symptoms and _ pathological 
changes indicated by sick animals, and the institution of careful per- 
sonal inquiries among those who have witnessed the maladies at differ- 
_ ent periods, have specially engaged our attention. 

We were first in having opportunities for a eareful study of the changes 
in temperature which occur in splenic fever, and, taken in conjunction 
with similar observations originally made by us in relation to the rind- 
erpest or Russian murrain, and since in numerous outbreaks of pleuro- 
pneumonia, it will be found that very definite and highly practical re- 
sults may be anticipated from persistence in this method of observation. 
Indeed so important is the matter in connection with the entire subject 
of comparative pathology, that it nay not be deemed inappropriate to 
give a restuné of our operations on this particular point. 

Last July we first used the only available thermometers that could be 
obtained in Chicago, Centigrade thermometers, of French manufacture. 
The Surgeon one however, kindly acceded to a request made through 
the Department of ee and two carefully compared self-regis- 
tering thermometers, made by Mr. L. Casella, of London, were forwarded 
to the west for the purpose of our inquiries. With these we were ena- 
bled to correct and verify the earlier observations. The normal tempera- 
ture of cattle varies from 100° to 102° Fahrenheit. The average tem- 
perature of Texan cattle is from one to two degrees higher than that of 
northern steers. There may be accidental deviations, of which the most 
noticeable is at the period of cestrum, when a cow may indicate a tem- 
perature as high as 106° Fahrenheit. It is, however, remarkable how 


REMARKS ON THE CATTLE DISEASES. 165 


difficult it is in healthy animals to cause any great deviation from a nor- 
mal standard, even during the hottest days of a western summer. Com- 
parative observations on a number of animals at the same time consti- 
tute a valuable and essential test. It was, however, striking and strange 
that in examining Texan cattle caught with the lasso, the temperatures 
obtained were the same as those among work cattle of the same herds, 
and which could be handled readily near the wagons. Observations of 
this kind are referred to in the report on splenic fever. 

The best part—and only one which should be chosen—for the insertion of 
the thermometer, is the rectum. The instrument must be introduced as 
nearly as possible to the same extent in all cases, and retained in situ at 
least three minutes. Animals are apt to defecate soon after the ther- 
mometer is passed in, and the rectum then remains passive for a time. 
This necessitates the withdrawal and reintroduction of the instrument, 
and the time required for the observation must be taken from the see- 
ond intromission. 

By this means animals in apparent health, grazing and moving in 
perfect comfort, are often found sick; and in the case of a contagious 
disease like pleuro-pneumonia, this timely warning is of the highest 
moment. 

In relation, however, to the nature of a malady, much is taught us by 
the thermometer. The periodic fever of southern cattle begins, like the 
rinderpest, with an increased heat of the body. The local changes ap- 
pear secondary to the general fever, though it is difficult to estimate the 
time that elapses from the first exaltations of temperature to the local 
manifestations. In pleuro-pneumonia it is probable, and indeed our 
observations are almost conclusive on the point, that there is first a local 
change and commencing deposit. A material grows and penetrates, 
charged with and dependent on the presence of a specific poison, and 
when it has sufficiently involved any important parts and become com- 
plicated with ordinary inflammatory changes, the general fever sets in. 
An elevated temperature is, however, observed in this disease long before 
a farmer or dairyman suspects that an animal is affected. This is the 
only way in which some latent cases of pleuro-pneumonia are recognized. 

Scientific men have hitherto failed in tracing the distinctive charac- 
ters of organic poisons which differed from each other, and only recog- 
nized by the very different effects produced on the animal economy. 
Some attack a single species of animal; others induce the same disease 
in a number of species. The lung-plague poison induces its character- 
istic effects on cattle; the poison of hydrophobia, most readily commu- 
nicated among feline and carnivorous animals, is deadly to the omnivora 
and vegetable feeders. Of the peculiar principles which tend to the 
diffusion of those diseases which are known to us as indigenous in cer- 
tain latitudes, and which we must distinguish at all times, in classifying 
diseases, from the contagious maladies of no known primary source, we 
have two equally remarkable instances in the splenic fever of the south, 


166 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


and the charbon or anthrax of many parts of the world. The one passes 
from cattle to cattle; the other is deadly to men, horses, dogs, pigs, and 
other warm-biooded animals. 

It is evident that principles which exert such a variety of definite in- 
fluences must have fundamental characters to distinguish them—that 
the virus of small-pox may some day be capable of distinction in its virus 
form from the virus of rinderpest or the lung plague. 2 

As far back as 1849, Mr. L. E. Plasse a veterinary surgeon at Niort, 
Deux Sevres, in France, published a work, illustrated by tables and a 
map, in which he announced the discovery of the causes of epizodties and 
epidemics, with the distinguishing features of two forms of charbon or 
anthrax, the one gangrenous and the other virulent.* It isa common error, 
due mainly to the undetermined meaning of a much used medical term, 
to regard epidemics and epizoodtics as typhoid fevers. Thus confounding 
many maladies, M. Plasse, in vainglorious terms which characterize his 
whole volume of near 500 pages, says: “Jai reconnu que les fievres 
typhoides, qui, chez les animawur, sont semblables a celle de. Vhomme, 
dépendent toujours W@une seule et méme cause: des champignons micros- 
copiques introduits dans Véconomie animale par les aliments ; et je démon- 
trerai clairement que toutes les causes qui ont été indiquées ne sont qwin- 
directes et déterminantes ; qwelles sont le résultat de Verreur; et que la 
vérituble cause est une et invariable.” M. Plasse was by no means the 
first to point to the lower forms of vegetable life as causes of disease in 
men and animals; but it would be au unprofitable task to enlarge on the 
earlier hints in this great field of error and of mystery. Plasse has the 
credit of first publishing a comprehensive volume on the subject; and in 
his succinct exposé of the work before us, an exposé which he read 
before the Institute of France on the 9th of October, 1848, he says: 
“7 have had to substitute the general denomination of cryptogamy for 
the various expressions applied to the diseases called typhoid, and I have 
recognized four states of the cryptogamic maladies. 

“ First state, eryptogamic incubation. The toxic principle here may 
sojourn in the animal economy during a greater or less length of time, 
without causing marked functional disturbance; the disease will never- 
theless be recognized by certain general symptoms. 

“Second state, cryptogamic elimination. This is the discharge of the 
poisonous principle from the animal economy, without apparent fune- 
tional trouble, whether by the excretions, the embryo in abortion, or the 
sucking animal. 

“Third state, external cryptogamy. The morbid principle is eliminated 
without apparent disturbance, and is fixed in a more or less apparent 
manner on the surface of the skin, or in certain cavities which have exter- 
nal openings. In this category are included glanders, farcy scrofula, 
lupus, canker of horses’ feet, (crapaud,) éléphantiasis, tinea, lepra, &e. 


* Découverte des causes des Epizooties et des Epidémies; Causes et distinction de 
deux genres de Charbon, &c. Par L. E. Plasse. Poitiers, 1849. 


REMARKS ON THE CATTLE DISEASES. 167 


Fourth state, cryptogamic fever. Here the toxic principle is precipita- 
ted in the incubative stage, either in the liquids or in the solids, in the 
interior, and in a manner whereby it determines a more or less intense 
and very various reaction, according to the kind of fungus and the system 
which is affected; thence the different forms of typhoid fevers, such as 
epizootic aphthe, grippe, the contagious typhus of cattle, suette miliaire, 
gangrenous pleuro-pneumonia, variola, scarlatina,” &e. 

M. Plasse heralded forth his great discoveries in terms of no doubt- 
ful meaning: ‘ C’est a la médicine vétérinaire qwil était réservé War- 
river & ces grandes découvertes.”. It might be thought that he had 
arrived at this result after long and painful researches on cryptogamic 
botany, and demonstrating, the presence of the lower forms of plants in 
the tissues of such animals, or in the food which communicated disease. 
Suffice it to say that M. Plasse’s observations referred rather to the 
character of seasons and localities remarkable for the development of 
cryptogamic vegetation, and suppposed to induce epidemics and epi- 
zootics. He has recorded some observations on intestinal disturbance, 
induced by grasses and grains attacked by fungi which he does not 
name; but, apart from these imperfect records, his entire work is based 
on the crudest hypotheses. 

It is not my object here to give a history of the cryptogamic theories 
in relation to the origin of disease, nor to review the able work of 
Charles Robin on the parisitie plants living on man and animals, nor 
analyze the observations of Swayne, Brittain, Budd, Baly, Sull, Griffith, 
Bennett, Robertson, Graves, Swain, Salisbury, Hallier, Richardson, 
Duvaine, Du Bary, and many more. Apart from the views enunciated and 
slender facts recorded, it seems to me essential to the completion of the 
work undertaken to attempt some means whereby it might be shown 
whether the periodic, or Texas, fever and the lung plague did owe their 
origin, as alleged by the New York commissioners for the first, and Hal- 
lies and Weiss for the second, to a peculiar cryptogamic vegetation. 
When in the west last summer I had occasion to recommend an investi- 
gation of the causes of the prevailing cattle fever in the South; and on 
its being resolved that I should visit Texas for the purposes of this 
inquiry, I obtained the assent of the Commissioner of Agriculture to the 
selection of Mr. H. W. Ravenel, of Aiken, South Carolina, so well known 
as an enthusiastic and reliable observer and collector in the field of 
cryptogamic botany, to accompany me. 

At the same time, Dr. J. S. Billings and Dr. E. Curtis, whose attention 
has been specially directed to the eryptogamie origin of disease, offered 
to co-operate with me, if I would supply material for satisfactory experi- 
ments regarding the two diseases named. By a favorable arrangement 
between the agricultural and army medical departments, these reports 
are now enriched by observations of the most reliable and interesting 
description. 


REMARKS ON THE IXODES BOVIS. 


BY C. V. RILEY, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI. 


IXODES BOVIS, (RILEY.) 


A reddish, coriaceous, flattened species, with the body oblong-oval 
contracted just behind the middle, and with two longitudinal impres- 
sions above this contraction, and three below it, more especially visible 
in the dried specimen. Head short and broad, not spined behind, 
with two deep, round pits. Palpi and beak together unusually short, 
the palpi being slender. Labium short and broad, densely spined 
beneath. Mandibles smooth above, with terminal hooks. Thoracic 
shield distinct, one-third longer than wide, smooth and polished; convex, 
with the lyrate medial convexity very distinct. Legs long and slender, 
pale testaceous red; cox not spined. Length of body, .15 of an ineh; 
width, .09 of an inch. Missouri Coll, C. V. Riley. 

This is the cattle tick of the Western States.. Several hundred speci- 
mens, in different stages of growth, have also been received from Pulvon, 
west coast of Nicaragua, taken from the horned cattle, and on a species of 
dasyprocta, by Mr. J. McNeil. They preserve the elongated flattened 
form, with the body contracted behind the middle, by which this species 
may be easily identified. The largest specimens measure .50 by .30 of an 
inch. When gorged with blood they are nearly as thick through as they 
are broad. In the freshly hatched hexapodous young, and the young in 
the next stage of growth, the thoracic shield is one-third the size of 
the whole body, which is pale yellowish, with very distinct crenulations 
on the hinder edge. The fourth pair of legs are added apparently at the 
first moult. It is called “garapata” by the inhabitants of Nicaragua. 


LETTER FROM H. W. RAVENEL, ESQ. 


To the Commissioner of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.: 

Str: In accordance with an invitation to accompany Professor Gamgee 
to Texas, and to make an examination of the botany of the country where 
he investigated the cattle disease, and especially to direct attention to 
the lower cryptogamic flora, the fungi, and algae, and also to examine 
the grasses and other plants furnishing food for cattle, I reached Gal- 
veston on the morning of the 28th of March, and proceeded at once to 
Houston to join Professor Gamgee. 

After making a cursory examination into the pastures in the neighbor- 
hood of Houston, I accepted an invitation from Colonel Ashbell Smith 
to visit his farm at Galveston Bay, Harris County, and reached that 
place on the 30th. Here [ had an opportunity of seeing a variety of 
soils, prairie as well as heavily timbered land, the latter rather rare 
in this part of Texas. Colonel Smith offered me ample facilities for 
investigation, and from his long residence in the country, and exten- 
sive information, [ was enabled to derive much benefit. I spent five 
days at this place, and made large collections of fungi and some few 
grasses. I made.an examination also of hay which had been cut last 
summer and stacked in the fields. It was perfectly sound, and of bright 
and healthy color, without any indication of mouldiness or parasitic 
growth. The hay was cut from a body of prairie land inclosed by a 
fence, a portion of which had been burnt off for the purpose. The 
remaining portion in the old dried grasses of the last season presented no 
different appearance from dried grasses in similar situations; nothing to 
indicate any increased growth of parasitic fungi, or of having suffered 
from that cause. Colonel Smith was good enough to furnish me with 
notes of his place, which I append, to give an idea of the quality and 
situation of his lands: 

‘The Evergreen estate is situated in the 29° 42’ north latitude, at the 
head of Galveston Bay, within the debouchure of the united waters of 
Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River, over Clopper’s Bar, and on the 
east side of the river. Itis washed inits rear by the Cedar Bayou, which 
empties into Galveston Bay some two miles lower down. This bayou is 
from twenty-five to thirty feet deep. There is scarcely any swamp or 
bottom, properly so called. The geological formation is alluvial. The 
soil on the San Jacinto or bay side is chiefly a sandy loam. That at the 
Cedar Bayou is a very black, stiff soil, and commonly known in this State 
as ‘hog wallow,’ from numerous depressions of the surface as if made 


170 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


by the wallowing of hogs. The estate comprises about four thousand 
acres, pretty equally divided in quantity into prairie and heavily tim- 
bered land. Oak and-cedar are the prevailing timber. There are also 
pines, hackberry, pecan, elm, ash, plum, persimmon, &c., &e. There 
are four species of grapes, at least. The mustang and muscardine 
abound in immense quantities. Both these vines, which are heavy bear- 
ers, make an excellent wine. The grasses are numerous; those growing 
spontaneously on the black lands, when protected from the bite of ani- 
mals by inclosure, make an excellent hay. The adjacent waters modify 
the temperature of the air most sensibly, both in summer and winter. 
The winter cold is about 5° milder than that of Houston, as shown by a 
comparison of thermometers. The fields when cultivated in corn, cotton, 
and sugar cane, aS before the war, yield abundantly.” 

After my return to Houston I went into the country, about three 
miles from the town, to a farm-house on the Buffalo Bayou, where I 
employed about two weeks in examining the pastures and grasses and 
making collections of fungi and other eryptogams. The wooded 


growth along the banks of the bayou, consisting of Magnolia, Laurus,, 


Ilex, Ungnadia or Spanish buckeye, Pecan, Tilia, &c., &e., afford a fine 
field for the fungi, and at this place I collected about two hundred dis- 
tinct species. The pastures were quite green, but the grass still young 
and searcely sufficiently grown to be identified. I collected here all 
that were in flower and could be distinguished. My attention was 
directed to their examination, especially to ascertain the presence of the 
lower entophytal forms of fungi or alge. I found them remarkably free 
of such parasites as I expected from the early period of the year, (the 
Uredos, Ustilagos, Puccinias, Tilletia, and other entophytes most generally 
appearing later in the season,) with the exception of a few species, and 
they not in any abundance; and a Helminthosporium which infests the 
same grass (Sporobolus Indicus) here in the Southern Atlantic States. I 
found no fungus on the grasses or other cattle food to attract my notice. 
This place, (Dr. Perl’s beef packery,) on the Buffalo Bayou, and Colonel 
Smith’s farm, are both in Harris County. With very few exceptions my 
entire collection of fungi, amounting to nearly three hundred species, 
ras made at these two places; and it was also here that Professor Gam- 
gee had the opportunity of examining some twenty-five or thirty cattle, 
collected from the neighboring pastures and slaughtered at the packery. 
On the 23d of April we left Houston by steamer, and reached Galves- 
ton the next morning, and on the 26th took the steamer for Indianola, 
where we arrived on the morning of the 27th. Finding a sail packet 
ready to start for Corpus Christi, we took passage and reached the latter 
place on the 29th. The next day we rode out into the country some 
six or eight miles from the town, passing through the ‘“ chaparral” or 
pastures densely set with cactus and various thorny shrubs. For several 
miles above Corpus Christi we passed through the mixed growth of prairie 
and chaparral. On the Nueces Bay, at the mouth of the river, the face of 


FUNGI OF TEXAS. pyres | 


the country was beautiful, with a gentle rolling surface some fifteen or 
twenty feet above the waters of the bay, thickly covered with grasses 
and flowering plants; and, interspersed with clumps of the graceful mes- 
quite tree, (Algarobia glandulosa,) it presented the appearance of a well- 
kept lawn. On these prairies the grasses were much further advanced 
in growth than further north, and I added to my collection many I had 
not previously seen, and especially one or two species of mesquite grass. 

On our return to Indianola, about one hundred and ten miles north of 
Corpus Christi, we went out some twelve or fifteen miles into the coun- 
try—all prairie—and here I was also enabled to add largely to my col- 
lection of grasses and other phaenogamous plants. I saw but few eryp- 
togams either at Corpus Christi or Indianola, a few lichens and two or 
three species of fungi comprising all from those localities. These prairie 
grasses were as free of cryptogamic growth as those about Houston, and 
although my attention was specially directed to them, I could see 
nothing to excite suspicion as to their being differently affected from 
grasses in other places. There were certainly no entophytal fungi infest- 
ing them at that time in sufficient quantity to attract my notice. 

The lands which I saw in Texas were all fertile, some of them ex- 
tremely so. Most of the surface was of a fine clayey loam, in some 
places rather tenacious. From this cause during a wet spring, as the 
last one was, it was difficult to prepare for cultivation. I was informed 
along the coast that the best pastures and the most nutritious grasses 
were found higher up,,from fifty to sixty miles above, and there are the 
best grazing lands. 

About Houston the grasses are killed for a few months during winter, 
but at Corpus Christi and along the southern coast they remain green 
and furnish good pasture all the year round. I here present an analysis 
of my collection of fungi according to their natural orders, and a com- 
parison with those of Rev. Dr. Curtis’s North Carolina collection, the 
only full catalogue published in the United States : 


Orders. Texan. Fungi. N. Carolina. Fungi. 
No. of species. Percentage. | No.of species. Percentage. 
Hymenomycetes - ----. --.- 64 22 955 39 
ASCOMVCeles! 2.2% 5225.8 151 52 715 34 
Gasteromycetes --..-. ---- 13 4 150 6 
Hyphomycetes. .... ..-..-. 26 9 188 8 
Coniomycetes) - .-=; ..---- 28 9 341 14 


My whole collection amounts to three hundred and fifteen numbers; 
but deducting for species too old to be determined, and some represented 
under other numbers, thirty, the whole number may be estimated at 
about two hundred and eighty-five good species. 

It will be seen by the above comparison that the Texan falls below the 


v7T2 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


North Carolina collection in relation to numbers of Hymenomycetes, an 
order which contains the Agarics, Boleti and other large and fleshy 
species very difficult to preserve except in dry weather. The number, 
however, which I saw were few, and I was impressed at the time with 
the very few representatives of the order in Texas. Perhaps later in 
the season that inequality would not have been observed. I was also 
surprised to find comparatively so few of the Entophytal Coniomycetes 
which infest living plants, the rusts, smuts, bunts, &c. This difference 
would also probably be less at a later period of the season,:as it is mostly 
towards autumn, when the seeds of grasses are maturing and the leaves 
declining, that they are in the greatest profusion. 

Attention has been drawn in the last few years to the “Texan cattle 
disease,” and much interest has been elicited as to the nature and cause of 
this disease. In the voluminous and very able “ Report of the New York 
State commissioners in connection with the Metropolitan Board of Health 
of New York City,” this subject has been very thoroughly investigated, 
and one of the results which Seem to be definitely reached is the con- 
stant and universal presence in the blood and bile of the diseased animals 
of certain cryptogamic forms of vegetation (Micrococci and Cryptococei 
so-called) primordial spores or cells, and which, under the skillful ma- 
nipulation of Professor Hallier, of Jena, have developed themselves into 
a distinct fungus plant which he names Coniothecium Stilesianum, after 
the distinguished microscopist on the New York board,-who first discov- 
ered them. Professor Hallier, in his letter of December 18, 1868, to Dr. 
Harris, of the Metropolitan Board, says in regard to the plant: ‘ Perhaps 
you may succeed in finding out the places where this Coniothecium grows 
in nature. At all events, it is a parasitical fungus growing on plants, 
and to be looked for in the food of the wild bullocks.” 

Whether my examination of a limited portion of the flora of Texas, 
and comprised in so short a time, will throw any light upon these inter- 
esting questions, I cannot tell. My observations were made with as 
much diligence and care as I could command, and present, as faithfully 
as lam able to give them, the true condition of the pastures and the 
cryptogamic vegetation of the region of country I visited. As far as I 
was able to examine, I found no species of Coniothecium on pasture 
grasses or on the dried hay. This, 1 know, is only negative evidence. 
The spores of these minute fungi, when they exist, are generally in 
great abundance, and may be wafted about by winds and carried by 
rains into rivers and pools of surface water which the animals drink. 
The modus operandi of these subtle agents of mischief, (semina mor- 
borum,) and the manner in which they gain access to the animal system, 
have long baffled the scrutiny of scientific men. To establish the fact of 
direct agency in any of these forms of vegetation, and to trace satisfae- 
torily the connection between cause and effect, will require cumulative 
proof of very strong and unquestionable character. The phases through 
which they pass, and the different forms they assume at various periods 


FUNGI OF TEXAS. 3 


of their growth, suggesting an analogy with the partheno-genesis (or 
alternation of generations) in the animal kingdom, is another element of 
difficulty in the solution of this question. Such investigations; however, 
as those undertaken by the New York Commissioners conducted as they 
have been in a truly scientific and philosophical spirit, must necessarily 
result in throwing light upon the subject and be ultimately crowned with 
SUCCESS. 

My collection of phaenogamous plants comprises about one hundred 
and seventy species. Of these about two-thirds consist of graminee 
and cyperacee, comprising the grasses proper and the rushes, sedges, 
and reeds, and water grasses. I am now engaged in their examination, 
and will furnish to the Agricultural Department a full series. Besides 
these, I collected such lichens and mosses as I could readily obtain, 
specimens of which will also be prepared for the department. 


Recapitulation of collection made in Texas. 


Species. 

Grasses and other phaenogamous plants, about...........-..-.--- 170 
JEL CWT) 2h CU Sel a eel Pao ean oan Oa Secale ake Sea Ama eee tga Pe ae 285 
DAM ee aU OU Ls yet, totes ts ata fae SUP ete 8 Re er See RETA sg 25 
WEnSeiandeale patie abOutesst: Voie Oy one Tier Sd tue aI) 
TETGATGIIS SPAT OU ele ats eg nO ae Oe RT Aa 85 
NOURISH OCO) Th eS epee te oe PREM oe Seem, Mant ee Cee, eek Ae 600 


Respectfully submitted : 
; H. W. RAVENEL. 
AIKEN, SOUTH CAROLINA, June 21, 1869. 


REPORT OF RESULTS OF EXAMINATIONS OF FLUIDS OF DISEASED CATTLE 
WITH REFERENCE TO PRESENCE OF CRYPTOGAMIC GROWTHS, 


BY BREVET LIEUTENANT COLONEL J. S. BILLINGS, ASSISTANT SURGEON U. S. ARMY, AND 
BREVET MAJOR EDWARD CURTIS, ASSISTANT SURGEON U.S. ARMY. 


Tn accordance with the request of the Honorable Commissioner of Agri- 
culture, and with instructions received from the Surgeon General United 
States Army, to investigate the question of the possible cryptogamic 
origin of cattle diseases, we have carefully examined many samples of 
blood and secretions from diseased cattle, furnished us from time to time 
by Professor Gamgee, and have experimented with them in various 
ways. The results of our investigations we have to report as follows: 

The questions which we have endeavored to answer are these: 

1st. Are any forms of cryptogamic growth present during life in the 
blood or secretions of the diseased animals ? 

2d. If so, of what character are they, and what is their probable source? 

Supposing the above queries answered, there would still remain the 
problem of the nature of the connection between the eryptogam and the 
disease, a problem which we have not attempted to discuss. 

As the fungi are the only eryptogams which it is necessary to con- 
sider, reference will be made to these only. 

The fungi which are supposed to cause disease in animals are, when 
in their perfect state, or at least in such a state that they can be identi- 
fied, composed of mycelium and spores. But according to the advocates 
of the cryptogamic origin of disease, neither the mycelium nor the spores 
of the fungus that produces the malady are necessarily or even usually to 
be found in the fluids or tissues of the affected animal, their theory being 
that the disease is produced by the presence in the economy of minute 
particles of protoplasm, (micrococcus of Hallier,) resulting from develop- 
ment and breaking up of the spores or mycelium of a fungus; from which 
granules, they assert, can be developed perfect forms of fungi, of recog- 
nizable genera and species, by proper ‘‘ cultivation” outside of the body of 
the animal fluids containing them. 

Thus, when the blood of a pleuro-pneumonie cow fresh from the vein 
is examined with a magnifying power of 1,200 diameters linear, nothing 
distinctive or unusual may appear; the red and white blood corpuscles 
may be perfectly normal, and nothing like spores or mycelium will be 
seen. But there will probably be, either single or in masses, some minute 
granules or molecules appearing as glistening points scattered over the 
field. If such are not present at first, by keeping the blood exposed to 
the air for a few hours they may be found in abundance. 

Now it is these little molecules which are asserted to cause disease by 
their presence in the animal economy, and which are claimed to be vege- 


INVESTIGATION AS TO ORIGIN OF CATTLE DISEASES. DTS 


table in their nature, as being developed from and capable of reproduc- 
ing certain common fungi, popularly known as rusts, smuts, or molds. 

To prove the truth of the latter statement, experiments have been 
made by various investigators on the principle of placing the fluids con- 
taining the mierococcus in the proper conditions as regards warmth and 
moisture for the development of fungi; supplying the germs with suita- 
ble pabulum for their nourishment, and adopting such precautions as 
are possible against the fortuitous introduction of spores of fungi from 
the atmosphere. And if under such circumstances a mold or mildew 
appears upon the suspected matter, the argument is that such mold 
necessarily sprang from the micrococcus granules as its parent germs, 
and therefore represents the perfect fungus of which such microcoecus 
is a special form. 

Now, since the spores of the common molds are almost omnipresent, 
the conclusiveness of all such experiments must depend upon the possi- 
bility of showing that all extraneous bodies have been perfectly excluded 
from the fluids cultivated. 

In detailing our own experiments in this direction, therefore, we give 
a somewhat minute description of the apparatus and processes employed ; 
partly that the value of the results obtained may be judged by it, and 
in part because it may be of use to others attempting a similar line of 
research. 

The first thing to be done is to obtain the suspected fluids in a state 
of purity, without risk of contamination by spores floating in the 
atmosphere, and in such a manner that they can be preserved for some- 
time without risk of material change. 

To effect this we take a glass tube three-sixteenths of an inch or so in 
diameter, seal one end by the flame of a lamp, and, at a point about three 
inches from the sealed end, draw it out to a slender tube. (Fig. 14—<a.) 

The tube is then held nearly upright in the flame of a Bunsen burner 
until the whole of the sealed end up to the narrow neck is red hot. The 
part in the flame is held with pincers, the other end in the fingers, and 
when the requisite heat is obtained the slender neck is rapidly drawn to 
a point and sealed. We a 


Cae. Donn a ar | 
now have a pointed, her- 


metically-sealed tube, aE ease no Geri 
(Fig. 14—0,) in which there Fig. 14. 


is a partial vacuum, and in which by the red heat all organic matters 
have been destroyed. 

This we call a “ vacuum tube.” 

Suppose, now, that we want some blood for experiment. As soon as 
possible after the death of the animal, lay bare the jugular vein, prick it 
with a lancet, introduce the pointed end of the tube and break it off 
within the vein, pressure being at the same time made upon the vessel 
from above and below towards the opening, by the fingers of an assist- 
ant. The blood will rush into the tube, and if it has been properly 
made, will fill it for three-fourths of its length. Then, holding a lighted 


176 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. — 


spirit lamp or candle close to the vein, withdraw the point of the tube 
directly from the vessel into the flame, and hold it there until sealed. 

If the operation has been properly performed, and the blood be healthy, 
it will coagulate and then remain unchanged for an indefinite period. 

Exudates in the pleural or peritoneal cavities, bile, urine, &c., are 

~ obtained and preserved in the same way. . 

The next step is to place the material thus obtained in favorable con- 
ditions for the growth and development of any fungus germs which it 
may contain. The requisites for this purpose are warmth, moisture, a 
supply of nutritive material, and exclusion of foreign spores. 

With regard to this last point, we reasoned as follows: 

By no amount of precautions or of complexity of apparatus is it possible 
to secure such absolute isolation of a fragment of tissue or a quantity of 
blood from possible contact with foreign spores, that the results obtained 
from its cultivation can be considered as positively conclusive. By no 
means known to us can a piece of lung be transferred from the body of 
an animal to the interior of a glass flask without contact with the atmos- 
phere and with instruments, nor even with the more manageable blood can 
we be absolutely certain when we see its surface covered with mold, that 
the possibly single spore from which that forest sprang must infallibly 
have been in the vein of the animal whence the blood was drawn. It 
was felt, therefore, that to adopt at the outset extraordinary precautions 
against the introduction of foreign spores would be more apt to lead to 
error than even taking none at all. The method of comparison was 
therefore resorted to. 

Let us first see, we argued, whether, without taking special pains to 
prevent the entrance of extraneous matters, the tissues and fluids of a 
diseased animal will produce fungi which healthy tissues and fluids 
placed side by side with them will not. The apparatus employed con- 
sisted of the following: 

1st. The so-called “isolation apparatus. 

This consists of a thin flat-bottomed flask of from four to eight ounces 

capacity, closed by a cork dipped in paraffin. 
Through the cork passes a glass tube bent 
twice at right angles, reaching about two 
| inches into the flask, and having the exter- 
nal end loosely closed by a pledget of dry 
=} cotton or jewelers’ wool. (Fig. 15.) 

This is used in, operating upon consider- 
able quantities or masses of material which 
are to remain undisturbed for several days, 
weeks, or months. 

To follow out the changes which oceur 
from day to day, and especially to trace 
under the microscope the commencement 
and progress of any fungus growth, grow 
ing slides of various patterns, and the so- 


9 


INVESTIGATION AS TO ORIGIN OF CATTLE DISEASES. 177 


called culture apparatus were employed. This last was made as fol- 
lows: 

In a flat glass capsule, six inches in diameter and one and a half inch 
high, is placed a porcelain stand two inches high, on which is laid a glass 
plate, which serves as a shelf to hold watch glasses, growing slides, &e. 
In the capsule covering the stand and plate stands a bell-jar, closed at 
the top by arubber cork or cork 
dipped in paraffin, through 
which passes a tube bent and 
packed with cotton, as in the 
isolation apparatus. (Fig. 16.) 
When in use the external space 
between the bell-jar and the 
capsule is filled with a strong 
solution of permanganate of 
potash. We thus obtain a moist 
chamber, which, by means of a 
water bath, can be readily kept 
at any desired temperature. 

The above-described forms of 
apparatus are essentially those 
used by Hallier, but he provides 
for drawing into the flask or 
bell-jar fresh air, which he puri- 
fies from foreign matters by 
causing it to pass through FIG. 16 
aleohol or a solution of permanganate of potash. It seems to us 
that this plan gives more complexity and trouble without additional 
security, for we have repeatedly caused spores of various species of fungi 
to germinate after they had been one or two minutes in alcohol; and 
spores being not easily wet by water, they would readily pass without 
injury in a bubble of air drawn through any aqueous solution. The risk 
of spores passing through an inch of dry cotton loosely packed in a tube, 
unless by the aid of a strong and long-continued current of air, is proba- 
bly very small. 

Of course the most satisfactory proof of the presence of fungus germs 
in the blood would be to see them actually develop under the microscope, 
and produce the forms by which they could be identified. To this end 
we have made use of the various forms of growing slides known to 
microscopists, but with not very satisfactory results. For the general 
purposes of a growing slide, that which has given the most satisfaction 
is made by laying on an ordinary glass slide, three inches by one, a piece 
of thin, fine, white blotting paper of the same size, with an opening in 
the center three-fourths of an inch in diameter, or a little less than that 
of the thin glass cover used. The edges of the paper may be cemented 
to the glass with a little Canada balsam, although this is not necessary. 

12 


178 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


To use it, put in strong alcohol for ten minutes, then in distilled water 
for the same length of time; free the central opening from water; place 
in it a drop of the fluid to be cultivated, and cover it with a very thin 
glass cover. Care must be taken to keep it perfectly flat. Place the 
slide in a culture apparatus, in which water alone is used as the isolat- 
ing fluid; let one end of a piece of sewing thread rest on the end of the 
slide, and the other dip into the water. 

If the slide is to be used without being placed in a moist chamber, 
the paper should be covered with a piece of thin sheet-rubber or oiled 
silk, of the same shape and size, and with a corresponding opening. If 
it be desired to use high powers, or to trace the germinations of a spore 
found in examining a slide, the glass cover may rest on the slide, and 
the blotting paper be placed on instead of under it. 

Tf it is desired to develop the fruit, the drop of alimentary fluid should 
be small, and a groove should be cut in the paper to the edge of the slide 
to allow the admission of air. The amount of moisture can be regulated 
at will by varying the size and number of the threads used to keep the 
paper wet. This slide is simple, cheap, and susceptible of being so modi- 
fied that it is available for almost every purpose for which a growing 
slide is required. 

De Bary’s growing slides were also used several times, and were very 
satisfactory. 

Another form of development apparatus which was used towards the 
close of our experiments consisted of a six-ounce glass beaker, having a 
little water at the bottom, and hermetically closed by a piece of thin 
sheet-rubber tightly stretched over the top. From the center of this 
cover there was suspended by a thread a strip of thin blotting paper, 
which had been previously soaked in alcohol and distilled water, and on 
which the material to be cultivated had been placed. The thread was 
attached to the cover and the paper by Canada balsam. This is a sort 
of isolation apparatus, and is more satisfactory than the one used by Pro- 
fessor Hallier. 

The material or substratum upon which the cultures are made, and 
which is intended to furnish nutriment to the fungi, is of various kinds. 
We used extract of beef, healthy blood, condensed milk, solutions of 
cane and grape sugar, pulp of lemon, orange, potato, &e., Xe. 

The solutions of sugar used were made with crystallized sugar, and a 
little tartrate of ammonia and ashes of yeast were added to furmsh the 
nitrogen and salts required for the growth of fungi. 

All the apparatus was thoroughly cleansed previous to use, by wash- 
ing with alcohol and freshly boiled distilled water, and the solutions of 
sugar, milk, beef juice, &c., were thoroughly boiled; and, if filtered, re- 
boiled before they were used. 


INVESTIGATION AS TO ORIGIN OF CATTLE DISEASES. 179 


SERIES I.—EXAMINATIONS OF BLOOD AND SECRETIONS FROM CATTLE 
AFFECTED WITH CONTAGIOUS PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 


A cow four years old died with the usual symptoms of pleuro-pneu- 
monia, near Washington, on the 10th day of February, 1869. Examin- 
ation made twenty minutes after death. The lungs were stuffed with 
exudation, and the pleural cavity contained a quantity of turbid, very 
fetid liquid, which, under the microscope, appeared full of actively mov- 
ing monads and bacteria. No communication was found between the 
lung and the pleural cavity, but it is not positive that such did not exist. 
The blood, under a magnifying power of twelve hundred diameters, pre- 
sented no abnormal appearance. Vacuum tubes were filled with the 
blood, and specimens of the pleural fluid and of the bile were also pre- 
served. The latter presented no unusual appearance under the micro- 
scope. 

Experiment 1, February 10, 1869.—Three six-ounce isolation-flasks 
were prepared; an ounce of Tourtelot’s extract of beef placed in each, 
boiled five minutes, and allowed to cool to 90° Fahrenheit. To the 
first were added the contents of one of the vacuum tubes from the 
cow above referred to; to the second that of a tube of blood from a 
healthy cow; to the third, nothing. The flasks were then placed in a 
water bath, and kept at a temperature of 85° Fahrenheit. On the 14th 
of February the flasks were opened. No. 1 contained large numbers of 
motionless bacteria, single and in pairs. No. 2 contained a very few of 
the same. No.3 contained none. The flasks were kept one week longer, 
at the end of which time there was no change from the appearances 
above mentioned. 

Experiment 2, February 10, 1869.—Six watch-glasses were arranged 
as follows: No. 1 contained pulp of fresh lemon and pleuro-pneumonic 
blood. No. 2 contained pulp of fresh potato and pleuro-pneumonic 
blood. No. 3 contained pulp of fresh lemon and healthy blood. No. 4 
contained pulp of fresh potato and healthy blood. No. 5 contained 
pulp of fresh lemon alone. No. 6 contained pulp of fresh potato alone. 
All the watch-glasses were placed in a culture apparatus, which was 
kept at 80° Fahrenheit in a water bath. February 14th a beautiful 
growth of aspergillus glaucus (Lk.) and penicillium glaucum (Ir.) appeared 
on watch-glass Nos.1, 2,3,5, and 6; most profusely on Nos.1and3, Watch- 
glass No. 4 contained nothing. 

Experiment 3, February 10, 1869.—Six watch-glasses were arranged : 
three with pulp of lemon, and three with potato. To four of them a 
few drops of the pleural liquid were added. They were placed in the 
culture apparatus, and in four days aspergillus and penicillium were 
in fruit in all. 

Experiment 4, February 10, 1869.—This was a duplicate of experiment 
1, with the exception that bile was used instead of blood. At the end 


180 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


of ten days careful examination failed to discover any organic forms in 
either of the flasks. 

Experiment 5, February 25, 1869.—One of the vacuum tubes of 
blood from the above-mentioned cow, and a tube of healthy blood which 
had been put up at the same time, were opened and carefully examined. 
The blood in each was coagulated, free from offensive odor, and under 
the microscope presented no unusual appearance. The contents of each 
tube were placed in a one-ounce vial with a slip of purified blotting pa- 
per, the vials sealed and kept at a temperature of 70° Fahrenheit. Ten 
days later bacteria and vibriones were present in each, but no trace of 
mycelium or of fungus fructifivation. 

On the 26th of February, 1869, a cow in the last stages of pleuro-pneu- 
monia was killed near Washington, and vacuum tubes filled from the 
jugular vein. Tubes were also filled with the serum contained in bulle 
formed by the false membrane lining the bronchial tubes. 

About four inches of each jugular vein were removed, ligatures having 
been first applied. Eighteen hours afterwards the blood in the veins 
from which the tubes had been filled was carefully examined with a 
power of seven hundred and fifty diameters. It was coagulated, and 
the serum contained some molecules, single or in chains of two or three, 
which were motionless, (Fig. 1, Pl. 1.) Blood from one of the vacuum 
tubes contained no such bodies. The lung serum contained molecules 
like those in the vein. 

Experiment 6, February 26, 1869.—In a culture apparatus were 
placed three watch-glasses and two growing slides, arranged as follows: 
The growing slides and watch-glass No. 1 contained boiled potato and 
diseased blood; watch-glass No. 2 contained boiled potato and healthy 
blood; watch-glass No.3 contained boiled potato and lung fluid. Twenty- 
four hours later, in the growing slides the red corpuscles had nearly dis- 
appeared; bacteria and monads, single or in short chains, were seen: @ 
few moving, but the greater part at rest. Seven days later there was 
no change; motionless bacteria and monads were present in all the 
glasses, but no trace of mycelium or spores. 

Experiment 7, February 26, 1869.—Seven watch-glasses and five 
erowing slides were arranged as follows: Watch-glass No. 1 contained 
potato boiled in distilled water; watch-glass No. 2 contained lemon boil- 
ed in distilled water; watch-glass No. 3 contained lemon boiled with dis- 
eased blood; watch-glass No. 4 contained diseased blood alone; watch- 
glass No. 5 contained healthy blood alone; watch-glass No. 6 contained 
boiled potato with diseased blood; watch-glass No. 7 contained boiled 
potato with healthy blood; growing slide A contained boiled lemon with 
diseased blood; growing slide B contained boiled lemon with healthy 
blood; growing slide C contained boiled potato with diseased blood ; 
growing slide D contained boiled potato with healthy blood; growing 
slide E contained boiled potato alone. These were placed in four sets 
of culture apparatus, and kept at a temperature of 78° Fahrenheit. In 


INVESTIGATION AS TO ORIGIN OF CATTLE DISEASES. 181 


twenty-four hours a few small cells were seen in slide B, which rapidly 
developed into ordinary yeast, continuing to bud and increase for four 
days. The fluids in watch-glasses 4 and 5 rapidly putrefied, and were filled 
with bacteria and monads. In watch-glasses 1 and 2 and growing slide 
E no change had occurred in eight days. In the others a few motionless 
bacteria appeared on the second day, after which there was no change. 
The precautions taken in this experiment to exclude extraneous bodies 
were great, embracing every point which could be thought of as lable 
to lead to error. In April one of the tubes containing lung serum from 
this cow was given to Mr. Reid, residing near Washington, and with its 
contents he successfully inoculated several cattle, producing in each case 
the same effects, and, judging by the after results, conferring the same 
immunity against the disease as if perfectly fresh virus had been used. 
The jugular vein from this cow, which had not been opened, was sus- 
pended in a glass jar, closed with a cork dipped in paraffine. This was 
kept at the ordinary temperature of the room and in diffuse daylight. 

June 3, 1869, the jar was opened and the contents examined. The 
serum had drained from the vein and collected in the bottom of the jar, 
was of an offensive odor, and contained bacteria, moving and at rest. 
No trace of mold on the outside of the vein The contents of the vein 
showed no bacteria or molecular forms. 

The contents of the vein and the serum which had drained from it 
were cultivated upon various substrata and in the several forms of 
apparatus, with the usual results, viz: luxuriant development of cryp- 
tococcus and penicillium. 

On the 3d of June, 1869, three months after it had been put up, one 
of the vacuum tubes of blood from this animal was opened, and the con- 
tents carefully examined; they could not be distinguished from freshly 
coagulated blood; the corpuscles were perfectly normal, and there was 
no trace of bacteria or micrococcus. 

This blood was cultivated on growing slides and in the beaker isola- 
tion apparatus—in one case with negative results, in others with the 
productions of the usual penicillium forms. Healthy blood kept for the 
same time and treated in the same way gave the same results. 

Other experiments were made with the pleuro-pneumonie fluids by 
cultivating them with solutions of cane and grape sugar, which will be 
referred to subsequently. 

The general conclusion from all the observations and experiments we 
have made is, that in the contagious pleuro-pneumonia of cattle there is 
no peculiar fungus germ present in the blood or secretions, and that the 
theory of its cryptogamic origin is untenable. 

The significance of the,appearance of bacteria, monads, penicillium, 
&c., in the experiments above given will be hereafter referred to. 


182 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Series II1.—EXAMINATIONS OF BLOOD AND SECRETIONS FROM CATTLE 
AFFECTED WITH THE TEXAS OR SPLENIC FEVER. 


On the 30th of April, 1869, two four-year-old steers were killed at 
Corpus Christi, Texas, and vacuum tubes were filled by Professor Gam- 
gee with the blood, urine, and bile. Professor Gamgee’s notes state that 
the spleen of these animals weighed respectively three and a half and 
three and three-quarter pounds; the livers were fatty; the true stomachs 
presented erosions, and there were punctiform ecchymoses in the pelvis 
of the kidneys and in the bladder. 

The blood and secretions were examined microscopically by Professor 
Gamegee, immediately after the death of the animal, with a power of 
five hundred and fifty diameters, but nothing unusual was discovered. 

On the 25th of May one of the blood tubes was opened, and the con- 
tents examined with a power of eight hundred diameters. 

The blood was dark, firmly coagulated, and without offensive odor. 
No white corpuscles were seen; the red corpuscles were mostly normal, 
a few being crenated or triangular. Patches of granular matter, a few 
motionless bacteria, and molecules, single or in chains of two or three, 
having a vibrating, swarming motion, were observed. 

In short all the appearances were those usually presented by blood 
when the white corpuscles have disintegrated and it is in the incipient 
stage of putrefaction. But besides these there were present yellow 
globular bodies, smaller than the red blood corpuscles, mostly united by 
twos and threes, though in some cases four or six were strung together, 
and presenting the general characteristics of minute spores. Ether, 
liquor potassxe, and sulphuric acid had no particular effect on them. 
(ies 1d. Pe) 

In two of the tubes from the same cannes opened one month later, the 
contents were putrefying, and micrococcus and bacteria were abundant. 

On the 29th of May vacuum tubes of blood and secretions from two 
yearling steers, killed at Houston, Texas, May 18, 1869, were received 
and examined. These animals presented the usual lesions—enlarged 
spleens, erosions of the stomach, We. 

The blood from these tubes was in an advanced stage of putrefaction, 
and filled with bacteria and micrococcus. 

The bile from the four-year-old steers was normal in appearance; that 
from the one-year-old animals was very dark and tenacious. Micrococcus 
was found in each, but not abundant. In each there were found moving 
rods, (bacteria?) which were somewhat peculiar, one end being bent, 
forming a little knob or hook. (Copper plate, Fig. 12.) They were of 
an orange color, probably owing to imbibition of biliary coloring matter. 

The urine in each set of tubes was found to contain micrococcus, 
bacteria, and cryptococcus. 

Experiment 1.—Blood from the first series of tubes was placed in 


INVESTIGATION AS TO ORIGIN OF CATTLE DISEASES. 183 


a De Bary’s growing slide, on blotting paper, in a beaker isolation appa- 
ratus, and in a watch-glass under a culture apparatus, with a few drops 
of freshly boiled solution of sugar. In the growing slide eryptococcus 
forms were observed in thirty-six hours; in twelve hours more, delicate 
mycelium filaments appeared, and on the fourth day the usual fructifica- 
tion of penicillium crustaceum was seen in the air space in the slide. 
The isolation apparatus was opened on the fifth day, and penicillium 
found on the blotting paper. In the watch-glass eryptococcus was 
developed on the second day; two days later this was very abundant, 
and of various sizes and forms, including C. guttulatus of Ch. Robin. 

Four days later mycelial filaments, with dilatations of various forms 
and sizes, (Schizosporangia of Hallier,) covered the surface of the blood. 
(Copper plate, Fig. 13.) One month later careful examination showed 
nothing but penicillium. 

Experiment 2.—The precautions taken in this case were very great, 
and were as follows: The beakers, culture apparatus, watch-glasses, 
slides, blotting paper, and thread were treated with dilute nitric acid, 
then with liquor potassie, and finally rinsed with hot, freshly-distilled 
water. The knife, glass rod, and file used were cleansed in hot alcohol 
just before being used. The vacuum tubes were cleansed with liquor 
potassz and alcohol just before being opened. The sheet-rubber was 
thoroughly washed with the same fluids. 

To prepare the beaker isolation apparatus, after the articles used had 
been treated as above, the cover with blotting paper was placed on the 
beaker, strong alcohol having been first poured in, and then it was thor- 
oughly shaken. The alcohol was then removed by similar treatment with 
fresh distilled water. The apparatus was then taken to a room in which 
no experiments had been made, and the fluids added to the blotting 
paper. During this operation the interior of the apparatus was exposed 
for about one minute. 

Blood from four-year-old steer (first set of vacuum tubes) was placed 
in a De Bary’s growing slide, in a watch-glass with pulp of lemon, same 
with pulp of orange; also in beaker isolation apparatus on lemon and 
orange. 

Blood from one-year-old steer (second set of vacuum tubes) was 
arranged in the same manner. 

And lastly, a similar series of apparatus was arranged with lemon 
and orange without blood. 

The growing slides and watch-glasses were examined daily, with powers 
ranging from two hundred to one thousand diameters. 

At the end of five days the isolation beakers were opened. The phe- 
nomena in all, with one exception, were the same. Penicillium crusta- 
ceum (Ir.) was developed in all, more slowly and less luxuriantly where 
no blood had been added. The exception referred to above was in the 
watch-glass to which the putrescent blood from the one-year-old steer 
was added; in this there was a luxuriant growth of mucor racemosus, 


184 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


(Fres.,) and also coremium, a luxuriant and fasciculated form of peni- 
cillium. 

It is considered needless to give the details of all the culture experi- 
ments undertaken with this blood; suffice it to say that it was placed on 
various substrata and compared with healthy blood, and the results 
were in all cases the same; i. e., production of penicillium, coremium, 
and mucor. 

In cultures undertaken with the urine, either no result was obtained 
or the usual penicillium made its appearance. 

Culture of the bile upon iemon gave the same results, but the penicil- 
lium growth was much less than when the blood was used. Disk-like 
masses of mycelium, (the Sclerotia of Hallier,) usually bright yellow in 
color, were produced alike with diseased and healthy blood. 

To judge, therefore, from the specimens that we have had the oppor- 
tunity of examining, it would appear that in the blood, bile, and urine of 
cattle slanghtered in Texas, apparently healthy while alive, but present- 
ing after death the appearances considered characteristic of the splenic 
fever, there are present minute bodies corresponding to the micrococecus 
of Hallier, which exhibit the same behavior with reagents as the spores 
of fungi. 

In the bile and urine bacteria and eryptococeus cells also occur. The 
micrococcus granules, however, have no specific characteristics, and can- 
not be distinguished from similar bodies which are to be seen in any 
blood in an incipient stage of putrefaction. Thus, on the 4th of June, 
vacuum tubes were filled with blood from a healthy sheep slaughtered 
near Washington, and this blood, examined sixty hours afterwards, con- 
tained in equal abundance these same bodies (micrococcus) that were 
found in the blood of the Texas cattle. The attempt to give these 
micrococcus molecules a special and important character by the “ cultiva- 
tion” in various ways of the blood containing them, also failed. In all 
cases the fungous growth that appeared upon the cultivated material 
was composed of the commonest molds, and, instead of being unique 
as to species or even genus, comprised various forms and sizes of 
cryptococeus, torula, penicillium, coremium, mucor, and the so-called 
schizosporangia of Hallier, of all forms and sizes; these various fungi 
being either simultaneously or successively developed. Moreover, all 
these varieties of fungi can be also developed by a similar cultivation of 
healthy blood, though not as rapidly nor in as great luxuriance. 

The fact that in our cultivations we never obtained any growths of 
ustilago, coniothecium, or tilletia, which were so frequently produced in 
Hallier’s experiments, is probably due to the circumstance that no speci- 
mens of those fungi were ever brought into the room where our experi- 
ments were conducted. 

In cases of splenic fever of cattle our experiments, therefore, fail to 
establish the presence of any peculiar or special cryptogamic germs in 
the blood; and, instead of supporting the notion that the micrococcus 


INVESTIGATION AS TO ORIGIN OF CATTLE DISEASES. 185 


granules which are present in any way cause the disease, tend rather to 
show that their occurrence should be considered as an effect of the malady, 
whether constant and inherent, or altogether fortuitous; for since these 
granules, if fungous in their nature, must be, as indicated by the cultiva- 
tions, forms of the very commonest molds, it is certainly a much more 
probable hypothesis that the disease so destroys the vitality of a part of 
the blood as to render it capable of supporting and nourishing a low 
form of these ubiquitous fungi, which perish when introduced into a 
healthy subject, than it is to imagine a deadly disease, occurring only 
under certain rigidly prescribed conditions, as caused by the presence, in 
the economy of the germs, of fungi notoriously harmless and of universal 
occurrence. 

It is, of course, possible that these fungi, developed in the fluids of a 
diseased animal, may become the carriers of contagium. This can only 
be determined by a series of inoculations upon healthy cattle. 

While the experiments reported above were still in progress,. we were 
fortunate enough to obtain a copy of the Transactions of the New York 
State Agricultural Society for 1867, containing the “ Report of the New 
York State Cattle Commissioners,” in connection with the “Special report 
of the Metropolitan Board of Health on the cattle disease.” This report 
we read with interest. 

The conclusions of Professor Hallier we do not accept, for three reasons: 
First, because the fluids sent to him were not put up with the proper 
precautions for exclusion of extraneous spores; second, because the 
culture apparatus used by him does not give reliable results, as we have 
found by experiment; and lastly, because his reasoning is based on a 
peculiar theory of his own, that penicillium, mucor, &c., are merely unripe 
forms of certain ustilagineous fungi, a theory which cannot be discussed 
here, but of which it is sufficient to say that it has been accepted by no 
other prominent mycologist, 

The statement of Dr. Stiles, that “‘the fungous origin of zymotic dis- 
eases is now conceded by the highest authorities in mycological research,” 
will no doubt surprise the said authorities; for Berkeley, Curtis, and 
De Bary, the highest authorities in England, America, and Germany, 
most assuredly concede nothing of the kind. 

With a culture apparatus, a lemon, and a little albuminous fluid, such 
as blood, serum, white of egg, &c., it is very easy to obtain almost any 
kind of mold; but the laws of development of such organisms are not 
yet sufficiently known to enable one to draw decisive inferences from the 
results. 

With regard to the magnifying power necessary for the examination 
of minute cryptogamic forms, it has usually been overrated. A good 
one-fifth objective is all that is necessary, and in making observations 
on growing slides is the highest power that can be conveniently used. 
We have, it is true, used much higher powers, but do not consider them 
necessary, or even desirable, in microscopic investigations of this char- 
acter. 


186 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


REMARKS. 


In a general way it may be stated, that all abnormal appearances 
observed in the fluids examined were such as might be attributed to 
putrefaction. Although much remains to be learned as to the causes 
and nature of this process, the tendency of modern science is to class it 
as a species of fermentation, which may be defined as a particular mode 
of decomposition of organized bodies, accompanied by the growth of cells 
of a fungoid character, supposed to be the active agents in the process. 

In fluids undergoing the alcoholic, the acetic, lactic, or butyric acid 
fermentations, in wine affected with the bitter fermentation, or in a 
solution of tannic acid changing to gallic acid, we find minute cells, in 
German called ‘ Hefe,” in French “mycoderms,” in English “ yeast.” 
Although the cells of ordinary yeast and those of the mycoderma vini 
aceti, or lactis, differ in shape and size, it is supposed that these varia- 
tions are due to the character of the fluids by which they are nourished, 
and that they are all really derived from the same source, namely, the 
ordinary moulds. Common brewers’ yeast (Cryptococcus cerevisi) is now 
thought to be not a distinet species of plant, but merely a stage of 
development of several different genera of fungi, such as penicillium, 
aspergillus, mucor, and perhaps several others. And the same is proba- 
bly true of the other mycoderms. 

When organic substances rich in nitrogen decompose, the action is 
termed putrefaction; and in all such, when examined with a sufficiently 
high magnifying power, there will be found little molecules, either single 
or in chains of from two to six, and minute colorless rods, single or in 
chains of two or three, straight or spirally twisted, rigid or flexible. All 
of these may be at rest or in motion; if the latter, it may be a vibrating, 
trembling motion, without change of place, or adirect propulsion through 
the fluid. These minute organisms have been successively considered as 
animals, as algze or water plants, and as fungi. The globular molecules 
are termed monads, and more recently micrococcus. The rods have 
received many names, but are usually known as bacteria. The tendency 
of investigators of this subject is to consider these monads and bacteria 
as the mycoderms of the putrefactive fermentation, and to suppose that 
they also are but one form of development of penicillium and other 
common molds. Mrs. J. Luders asserts that she has seen the bacteria 
emerge from spores of penicillium placed in meat juice, and the pro- 
duction of yeast by adding putrefying fluids to saccharine solutions 
has been repeatedly accomplished. 

We have performed some experiments on this subject which may per- 
haps be of interest. 

Our aim was to develop in a saccharine solution an unmistakable 
yeast cell with its attendant special form of fermentation, from a vibrio 
or bacterium contained in a putrefying fluid ; and the practical problem 
was to devise some means whereby the putrid fluid might be added to 


SS INVESTIGATION AS TO ORIGIN OF CATTLE DISEASES. 187 


the sugar solution, without at the same time any yeast cells, which it 
might accidentally contain, also passing into the solution and so vitiat- 
ing the result. To accomplish this end we availed ourselves of the dif- 
ferent behavior of yeast cells on the one hand and the various erypto- 
gamic organisms of putrid fluids on the other, in respect to their ability 
to pass through certain tissues. Now, bacteria, vibrios, and molecules, 
either single or in chains, (Monas, Microzymas, Micrococcus, Leptothria, 
Zooglea and Schizomycetes, of various authors,) will readily pass 
through thoroughly moistened filtering paper; while, as originally shown 
by Mitzscherlich, (Pogg. Annal., 1855, p. 224,) and again proven by the 
following experiments, yeast cells will not. Furthermore, none of the 
above-mentioned bodies will pass through vegetable parchment, although 
fluids will. If, then, upon adding a putrefying fluid to a saccharine 
solution, through the intervention of filtering paper, we produce yeast 
and fermentation in that solution, while upon making the addition 
through vegetable parchment we produce none, the method of the 
experiment leaves no doubt that the yeast must have been developed 
from cryptogamic germs other than yeast contained in the putrid mat- 
ter. To carry out this plan of experiment, the following apparatus was 
used : 

In a four or six-ounce glass beaker (not lipped) was placed a tube, 
made by cutting off the bottom of a common test tube, 
three-fourths inch in diameter and as high as the beaker. 
This tube was open at the top, but closed at the bottom 
by two layers of fine, strong filtering paper tied tightly 
over the flaring end with waxed string, and rested ona 
fragment of glass rod placed in the beaker; all these 
articles having been carefully washed, were put together 
as described, and about two ounces of hot strong alco- 
hol were poured into both the tube and beaker. A 
piece of thin sheet rubber was next tied over the top, 
hermetically closing both beaker and tube, and the 
whole apparatus, having been thoroughly shaken, so that the hot liquid 
should come fully in contact with every part, was then set aside to cool 
until wanted. 

The solution to be experimented on, which had been boiled, filtered, 
and then reboiled in a flask fitted up as an isolation apparatus, was in 
the mean time cooling in that vessel. When this had cooled to about 
85°, the alcohol was removed from the apparatus and the tube was 
rinsed with a little freshly distilled water. Then from one to two ounces 
of the solution to be experimented on was placed in the beaker, while a 
little of the putrefying or fermenting fluid was put in the inner tube. 
The sheet-rubber was finally stretched tightly over all and tied as before, 
and the apparatus was then kept at a temperature of 75° Fahrenheit 
to 85° Fahrenheit in diffused day light, (Figure 4.) 


188 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


The solutions used were of cane or grape sugar, mixed with extract of 
beef, or with tartrate of ammonia and ashes of yeast. 
The two following formule gave the best results : 


A. 
Cane. SUG aT s oj. -js.416: 4:4 + sebradee- aul: haacee et eee S558 10 parts. 
Tourcelot/s extract, of Week. .i-.cee 43 ek. omewth pen eehee ee 10 parts. 
Waters Gt ccs - iy os are gtete -peomuar alls sateen Ah 100 parts. 
B. 
ACG SWAT 5 ee eet cane as ogee Rey BORA vipa lice aaa AS TALE ee 10 parts. 
WRaor enue OF AMMNOMIG Ns ane soe nae se oun Oe ee ed ete eee D parts. 
INSHES OI VCASUS © cae ps 2 aes melt woe se 6 ee eae eae oes a ae 5 parts. 
IWWiUGG te ere ec cto eee a mae caer = Sinise Siac eran ee 80 parts. 


Experiment 1.—On the 24th of March, 1869, solution A was placed 
in five beakers, the tubes of which were closed with paper. In the tube 
of No. 1 was put a teaspoonful of fresh yeast; in those of Nos. 2 and 3 
some putretying fluid from lung of pleuro-pneumonic cow; in No.4 was 
placed a fluid containing large and lively bacteria taken from a can of 
preserved roast meat which had spoiled; to No. 5 nothing was added. 
Two ounces of the solution were also retained in the flask which had 
remained uncorked for fifteen minutes. . 

In twenty-four hours the rubber cover of No. 1 was distended, pre- 
senting a well-marked convexity. Bubbles of gas were rising in the 
tube, but none in the beaker. The covers of Nos. 2, 3, and 4 were 
slightly distended, and a few bubbles appeared on the outside of the 
tubes. No. 5 was unchanged. 

In forty-eight hours the covers of the first four beakers were strongly 
distended, showing that the closure was perfect, (an important point.) 

In No. 1 the bubbles were still confined to the inside of the tube, 
while in Nos. 2, 3, and 4 they were chiefly on the outside of the tubes. 
No. 2 was now opened. The fluid in the beaker was turbid, filled with 
molecules, chains of granules, and bacteria. It also contained well- 
marked yeast cells, separate, and just beginning to bud. 

The next day, March 27, beakers 1, 3, and 4 were opened. In No. 1 
the yeast was confined to the tube, in which it was in full growth. 
Not one yeast cell could be found in the outer fluid. 

In Nos. 3 and 4 there was abundant growth of yeast in the beakers; 
greatest in No. 4. In No. 5 there was no change, nor has any occurred 
at this date. 

At the same time that the beakers were arranged a series of growing 
slides was prepared and charged with the same fluids. The changes in 
these corresponded precisely with those in the beakers, except that they 
were more slow. 

Experiment 2.—Two beakers were arranged with solution A. The 
tube of No. 1 was closed with vegetable parchment, that of No. 2 with 


— 


INVESTIGATION AS TO ORIGIN OF CATTLE DISEASES. 189 


filtering paper. Putrefying fluid from the lung of a pleuro-pneumonic 
cow was placed in the tubes, care being taken in No. 1 that this fluid 
should stand at the same height as the solution of sugar in the beaker. 

In twenty-four hours decided osmose from the tube to the beaker had 
occurred in No. 1, and the rubber cover was concave. In forty-eight 
hours the cover was still concave and the fluid in the tube was three- 
fourths of an inch lower than in the beaker. In beaker No. 2 the cover 
was distended and yeast was evidently in active development. 

Four days later the beakers were opened. The cover of No. 1 was 
now very slightly convex; yeast cells were found in the tube but none 
in the beaker, although the latter contained molecules or micrococcus. 
In No. 2 the cover was now concave, owing to fructification of penicil- 
lium within the tube. Yeast cells were found abundant in the beaker. 

Experiment 3.—Eight beakers were arranged with solution B, the 
tubes being adjusted as follows : 

Nos. 1 and 2, closed with filtering paper; contents, putrefying roast 
beef. Nos.3 and 4 closed with filtering paper; contents, blood of pleuro- 
pneumonic cow. No.5, closed with filtering paper; contents, fresh yeast. 
No. 6, closed with vegetable parchment; contents, fluid as in Nos. 1 and 2. 
No. 7 closed with vegetable parchment; contents, fluid as in Nos. 3 
and 4. No. 8, closed with vegetable parchment; contents, nothing 
added. 

To each beaker, except 6 and 7, two growing slides were prepared 
with the same fluids. April 14 the beakers were opened. Nos. 1, 2, 3, 
and 4 contained abuudance of yeast, and the covers were strongly con- 
vex. Nos. 5,6,and 7 contained yeast cells in the tube, but none in the 
beaker; the yeast in No. 6 was very scanty. No.8 remained unchanged. 
The growing slides were watched from day today. Yeast cells appeared 
in those corresponding to beakers 1 and 2 in 48 hours; in those corres- 
ponding to 3 and 4 one day later. They appeared in those correspond- 
ing to beaker No. 8 on the sixth day, but none had appeared in the 
beaker on the tenth day. 

A number of other experiments were made on this subject, the results 
of the majority of which were in accordance with those above given. 
Several times the conclusions were vitiated from the fact that yeast 
developed in the sugar solution when nothing was added. 

It seems probable, in view of the results of the above experiments, 
that some of the bacteria and micrococcus germs are really fungoid in 
character and capable of development into higher forms. 

It is unlikely that all the minute organisms above referred to are of 
the same character, but any attempt at classification of them is of very 
doubtful utility. If it is ever successfully done it will probably be by 
the application of chemical tests. We may mention that a solution of 
sulphate of quinine stops the motion of bacteria very rapidly, while 
strychnine has no particular effect; and, again, in a solution of pure 


190 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


carbolic acid, two grains to the ounce, we have seen them quite lively 
twenty-four hours after they had been placed in it. 

We do not suppose the above will hold good for all bacteria; indeed, 
we have seen some that were rendered motionless almost instantane- 
ously by solution of carbolic acid. . 

If the above expressed view of the nature of these bodies be accepted 
as probable, the results of the culture experiments with the fluids of. 
diseased and healthy animals can be readily understood. In many ani- 
mals, whether healthy or diseased, there are no fungus germs in the 
blood. We have kept vacuum tubes of blood for four months, and at 
the end of that time the contents were perfectly normal. In other ani- 
mals there are probably germs in.the blood during life, as shown by the 
fact that, in vacuum tubes filled from them, the blood putrefied and the 
usual mycoderms developed. But that these germs can develop and 
multiply, without dead organic material as a pabulum, is very doubtful. 

The fungi, which are developed from blood containing these germs, 
are, as might be expected, the common molds, the spores of which are 
almost ubiquitous. Most frequently penicillum, next mucor, next 
aspergillus. 

Other forms may appear, and those above mentioned may vary greatly 
in size, color, and rapidity of development. 

As was stated in the beginning, our object was to determine the pres- 
ence, and, as far as possible, the nature of these germs. The query as 
to the connection between them and disease, whether they should be 
considered as specific causes of the disease, or as carriers of contagium, 
or as the signs of destruction of vitality of a part of the fluids or tissues 
in which they are found, said destruction being due to some other 
cause, is one of great interest; but for the answering of which the 
“Jancet and injection tube” will probably be far more efficacious than 
the microscope and “ culture apparatus.” 

JS. BILLINGS, 
Bot. It. Col. and Asst. Surg. U. 8S. Army. 
EDWARD CURTIS, 
Bot. Maj. and Asst. Surg. U. S. Army. 


= — 72 


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