The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1878-01-31
The Chambers.

CHARLoTTEsyILLE, January %, 1878.
Editors Dispatch: feeiit public duty
TO warn your readers to look well to their
horse and mule stock, to check the spread
OF CHAMBERS, and be careful that the good in
tended by Colonel Ruffin, in your issue OF
the I'D, and which has been spread by the
January Planter and Farmer, and whilst
will not say Colonel Ruffin is in error, Heel
sure would not err II were to state-at
least not until this recipe OF the late Gencrai
Brandon was found-that the cure for CLAN
ders was anlcno,on; and this may start
auacks afresb, and luil the fears and give q
new impetus to horse-cheats, and it will
spread sieaIthily to unknown points. 1t is
astounding to know how good citizens may
become demoraiized, and will trade or
hare 1t done for them by others, and thus
scatter the most deadly disease known to
horse-fiesh; that is, a disease that is sure
sooner or later will kill, and should be
avoided as the bite Of rattlesnake In the
human family and it is the more danger
Gus because OF the vdried forms in which 1t
may appear and the varied effect 1t has on
animals till they finally die. My acquaint-
ance with it in 1912 among our stage stock
in Virginia, and in Alabama and Mississippi
in 1855, and later in Texas, Arkansas, Mis-
souri,, and the Indian Territory, and alike
fatal in those States, and first and last pro-
badly eighty to one hundred head OF horses
and mules, rs well us in Virginia from the
army stock, and its symptoms and results
ended sooner or later in death, and l ',eUer
Ene,r-G case to be cured. Tt is fiattering at
times to see apparent improvement ior
little time; and it's astonishing how little
it will seem to affect an animal, and how in
q few weeks, or month or more, 1t Will
kill; and the animal who introduced 1t may
not scarcely show more than what the M
cendiary who trades or sells him calls dis
temper, and that it will soon pass away. l
have been so frequently sufferer for my
companies in this "distemper"- error and
fraud it was my rule that no animal should
be bought or traded for with symptoms OF
distenDer about it. will not cumber your
paper with more than to say that the Far
rier-Book describes the symptoms; and
there is very valuable book by Professor
John Il. Page, OF the University Of Vir-
ginia, that should be in every horse-owners'
hands in the country. 1t Is the result
OF much labor and experience during
the war, and tests made by board
of physicians at the Horse 1nfirmary
at Lynchburg, OF which DR.. Page was chief.
have read it with interest, and the whole
borsc-interest Is under obligations to him
for his minute details of this loathsome dis
ease, from which man is not safe in hand
ling such horses, and it will be easy to de-
eide the horse should die; and it ought to
be, If it is not, criminal offence to part
with stock SO affected; and it is too bad to
know. how many otherwise good men will
play the part of worse than an incendiary
at the dead hour Of night in parting with
these firebrands to innocent parties, and
too often to parties to be joint with them in
profits and crime in scattering them at q dis
lance among people who have not heard OF
thepreralence of this disease elsewhere near
them. s. w. FICKLIN.