Evening star., 1909-06-18
Cattle Disease Was Imported
in Vaccine Virus.
ORIGIN PUZZLED EXPERTS
Satisfied That Mouth Trou-
BILE Was Not Local.
COST $50o,0oO TO STAMP OUT
Animals Affected Were All Traced
to New England Factory Where
Imported Virus Was Used.

The recent outbreak of foot-and- mouth
disease among the cattle of this country.
which cost the government 100000 to
stamp out and which. except for a ruling
of the Department of Justice. would have
cost s. Ono.O 900, has been at last traced by
the Department of Agriculture, which
proved, after a series of exhaustive tests,
that it came from Japan, not as such in
fection is expected to come, in straw, bed
ding or rags. but through virus intended
TO manufacture vaccine for human beings.
The outbreak started last October in the
Buffalo stockyards, and was spread
thence in quick succession to the states of
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The origin of the outbreak at first was
mystery, as there seemed no way in which
cattle could have broken the strict quar-
antine laws of this country. and there was
no evidence of the importation of infected
bedding. The first thing the Department
of Agriculture was interested in was in
stamping out the disease. The infected
states were quarantined and the infected
premises were disinfected. The quaran-
tine was then reduced to certain counties,
and a few weeks ago was removed alto
gether. 1t cost the government great
deal of hard work to stamp it out and
large amount of money. The railroads
which had been put to the expense of dis
injecting their cars put in claims for in
demnity that would have run into the
millions, but these were disallowed.
Traced From Virus Factory.
The suspicion of the department was
attracted by the way the spread of the
disease had followed certain cattle that
had come from a vaccine manufactory
in New England. These cattle were not
apparently infected. but the disease
seemed to follow them. The aid of the
marine hospital and public health serv-
ice was enlisted, and 1T was found that
the vaccine manufactory in question had
been using some vaccine virus imported
from Japan to strengthen its own
virus
Cattle that had been used to get the
vaccine virus from were afterward sold
and slaughtered for meat. This is not
objected to by the department, as there
Is nothing against the use of cat
tie that have been so used But 1T hap
pened in the present case that the vac
cine virus was infected with the virus
of foot and mouth disease when it was
imported and while the presence of the
vaccine virus obscured the LESSONS of
foot and mouth disease in the cattle
used at the laboratory, they were capa-
BILE of transmitting the disease to other
cattle.
Both Came From Japan.
1t took d great deal of hard work to
settle the origin of the outbreak to the
satisfaction of the department. but there
seems no doubt now that the investi-
cation has been concluded that this was
the way the outbreak started. The old
er records indicate that the outbreak of
1902 started in the same way. This was
suspected at the time. but never suff1-
ciently proved to warrant the depart
ment in disclosing the findings.
Both of these outbreaks can now be
set down to the use of the japanese
vaccine virus.