The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-04-10
PleurO.PneumOnia.

The cattle plague, which is creating
so much anxiety throughout the East
ern States, is acontagious fever, affect
ing COWS chiefly, characterized by ex-
tensive exudations into the respiratory
organs, and attended by a low typhus
Inflammation of the lungs, plure and
bronchia. It has prevailed in Europe
for ages, at times developing into wide
spread scourges, causing incalculable
loss. 1t was imported into England in
1889, and again three years later; and
it was estimated that within twenty
FIVE years thereafter the losses by
deaths alone in England had amounted
to $3.50, 900, 900. In 1858 the disease
was carried to Australia by an En-
glish cow, and, spreading to the cattle
ranges, almost depopulated them.
In 1843 an infected Dutch COW
brought the disease to Brooklyn, where
it has since fingered, slowly spreading
among the cattle in Kings and Queens
Counties. In 1847 several head of liz
fected English cattle we're imported in
to New Jersey, and, spreading among
a herd of valuable cattle, made it neces-
sary for them all to be slaughtered, the
only certain method of stamping out
the disease. In 1859 four infected cows
were imported into Massachusetts, from
Holland; the plague spread rapidly,
and was stamped out only by persist
emit effort, the State paying for over
1000 slaughtered cattle. Since 1867
the disease has not been known there.
Meantime the pest had invaded East
ern Pennsylvania, Delaware and Mary
land, where it has since prevailed in
isolated localities. The absence of
large herds of moving cattle in these
districts, except for speedy slaughter,
has prevented the disease from devel-
oping into a general plague.
Council in forbidding the importation
of American live cattle is likely to
prove of inestimable benefit to this
country, in forcibly calling attention to
tho grave risk that the presence of the
disease on Long Island and elsewhere
constantly entails. Fortunately the
drift of the cattle traffic is eastward,
and as yet there has been no propaga-
ton of the poison in the great cattle
ranges of the West. Unless summarily
arrested, however, the disease will
surely reach those sources of our cattle
supply, and occasion losses that can be
estimated only in hundreds of millions
of dollars.
. The experience of all countries into
which this disease has gained access
appears to prove that there is only one
way of getting rid of it-namely, the
immediate killing of all infected cattle
and the thorough disinfection of the
premises in which they are found.
The disease is purely infectious, and
is never found in regions where it has
not gained a foothold by importation.
Palliative measures have in every in
stance failed to eradicate the disease,
and are only Unsuitable, as in Australia,
after the plague has reached dimensions
utterly beyond the reach of any process
Of determination.
Prof. Law, of Cornell University, one
Of our best-informed veterinary sur
geons, most emphatically opposes
every attempt to control the disease by
the sick or by the inocu-
lation Of the healthy. eve may quar-
antine the SICK" he says, "but we
cannot quarantine the ali" To estab-
fish quarantine yards is simply to
maintain prolific manufactures of the
poison, which is given off by the breath
Of the sick, and BY their excretions, to
such an extent that no watchfulness
can insure against it's dissemination.
Beside, the expense Of thorough quar-
antining operations would amount to
more than the value of the infected ami
mails whose lives might be saved there
by. incubation is still less to be toler.
ated 1t this stage Of the pest: