Letter from the Commissioner of Agriculture to the Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture : communicating information on the subject of pleuro-pneumonia among cattle.

  • Le Duc, William Gates, 1823-1917.
Date:
[1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter from the Commissioner of Agriculture to the Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture : communicating information on the subject of pleuro-pneumonia among cattle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE OX AGRICULTURE, COMMUNICATING- Information on the subject of pleuropneumonia among cattle. February 15,1879.—Ordered to be printed. Deparment of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, February 14, 1879. Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of recent date, asking for such information as may be in my possession re- lating to the subject of pleuro-pneumohia among cattle. The subject is one that is attracting great attention in this country at present; 'hence information is rapidly accumulating in this department, the more im- portant portion of which I herewith transmit for the information of your committee. I shall first give a brief statement of the action of the de- partment in the matter, and then submit such letters, telegrams, and other information of an important character bearing upon the subject as have recently come into my possession. In August, 1877, within one month after my accession to the position of Commissioner of Agriculture, I instituted a preliminary examination of diseases of domesticated animals. For years I have been cognizant of the loss of immense numbers of swine and other farm animals by dis- ease, supposed to be of an infectious and contagious character; and,' with the very limited means at my disposal, I opened a correspondence with leading farmers and stock-growers in almost every county in the United States. The result of this correspondence was the accumulation of a vast amount of important information on the subject under consideration, which, by request of the Senate, was communicated to that body on the 27th day of February, 1878, and w as afterwards published as Senate Ex. Doc. No. 35. In order that a thorough examination might be made into some of the more destructive diseases affecting farm animals, and such remedial and sanitary measures instituted as would prevent the spread of such mal- adies as were well known to be both infectious and contagious, an appro- priation of $30,000 was asked, and the sum of $10,000 was granted. In my letter of transmissal to the Senate in February, 1878, the following language is used: Our wide extent of country and its great diversity of temperature and variation of climate, the severity of frosts in sonic sections, and the intensity of heat in other lo- calities, render farm-stock liable, to the attacks and ravages of almost every disease known in the history of domestic animals. So general and fatal Lave many of these