information you ask is contained in the catalogue I mail herewith. If you begin your medical course this fall, you can graduate Feb. 1885. That is as soon as any respectable school can graduate you, unless you have already taken a course. There is no place where you can learn more medicine for the same amount of money than in I came here in '77 with a very light pocketbook to study medicine, and, contrary to my expectations, I had a little left after graduating, and was given no beneficiary privilege either. The cushioned seats for our new amphitheatre have arrived from the factory. They are all numbered, so that students on matriculation reserve their seats for the ensuing session, those matriculating first having choice. If you desire a seat near the front, you had better remit me the matriculation fee ($5), leaving the balance of $45, and I will matriculate you, select the best seat possible, and mail you your matriculation ticket and number of seat, so when you arrive you will not be crowded back so far that you will be unable to see well the demonstrations and experiments. Hoping to hear from you in a few days, I am, Yours truly, * This exhibit shows the prostitution of medical college work to base purposes at "the medical center of the South and West." I have made the blanks to hide the identity of the actors in the comedy, because this college has accepted my friend Rauch's "Minimum Requirements" for a medical college to be held in "good standing;" and, no doubt, its faculty are ready to swear by the West Virginia schedule of requirements also! So much for mere promise of reform and a higher standard ! Finally, in exerting my efforts in advocacy of the cause of sanitary progress, I should commit a serious blunder if I neglected to bespeak the assistance and co-operation of the ladies. Woman gave Massachusetts the first State Board of Health in the United States, and from that beginning-in 1869-twenty-eight States have followed the exemple. There is yet much work for her to do, and none can do it so well as she; and no cause possesses a stronger claim upon her sympathies and affections. As science advances, she gradually acquires her true position in the scale of social life. Of the world's inhabitants, 750,000,000 universally hold woman in a state of bondage and degradation; 250,000,000 alone allow her to approach her proper sphere by acknowledging the marriage contract, paying deference to her influence, and promoting her intellectual culture. How much had the mind of man to be cultivated before it could give expression to that sweet sentiment of Campbell? "And say, without our hopes, without our fears, VETERINARY DEPARTMENT. TEXAS CATTLE FEVER-IS IT A CHIMERA OR A REALITY?* BY D. E. SALMON, D. V. M. VETERINARIAN U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. As long ago as 1796 there was an outbreak of cattle disease in Lanchester county, Pa., which was attributed to infection from a drove of cattle previously brought from the State of South Carolina. In every instance where these animals had mixed with others a disease was contracted, and in one case this disease was supposed to have been induced indirectly by the grounds on which the Southern animals had been penned. It is extremely interesting from our standpoint to note the peculiar characters of the disease as observed at that time; for then there was no previous tradition to lead them to ascribe such an affection to Southern cattle. The outbreak occurred in the month of August; there was weakness of the limbs, amounting to inability to stand; when the animals fell they would tremble and groan violently; some discharged bloody urine; the bowels were generally costive; the kidneys, on post-mortem examination, were found inflamed. Since that time there have been many outbreaks of disease in Pennsylvania, in Maryland, in Virginia, in North Carolina, in Georgia, in Tennessee and in Alabama, which I cannot particularize at this time; but which were attributed to infection brought by apparently healthy cattle that had come from towards the Atlantic or gulf coasts. These outbreaks invariably occurred in summer; they were characterized by weakness of the limbs, constipation, bloody urine, drooping head and lopped ears. The duration of the disease was from three days to a week; the sick cattle seldom, if ever, infected other animals; on post-mortem examination the most conspicuously diseased organs were the spleen and kidneys. The plague stopped its ravages with the first heavy frost. It was not until 1853 that similar accounts began to come from the Southwest and West, and as in succeeding years a greater number of cattle were driven from Texas into Missouri, Kansas and Iowa, so the cases of infec *Read before the American Public Health Association at its annual meeting at Detroit, November 14, 1883. tion charged against them multiplied enormously. So certain were the people of these States, after a few years' experience with the disease, that it was brought by the Texas cattle that in 1861 laws were enacted to regulate the movements of the southern herds. This seems to have been done in complete ignorance of the fact that the same disease exists in the Atlantic States of the South, and although similar laws had been framed in North Carolina as long ago as 1837, the laws of the West were the result of an independent experience and local necessity. At this time, however, the war broke out, the driving of cattle from the South ceased, and the disease disappeared only to return with the first Texas droves. It is not my purpose to recount to you the many fatal outbreaks which occurred during the years 1866, 1867 and 1868, when Texas cattle were carried without restraint into the very heart of the great stock-raising sections of the West. They are on record elsewhere, and some of the honored members of this Association investigated them and deserve great credit for what they did towards giving us correct ideas of this scourge. Within two miles of the Chicago stock-yards 161 animals perished in a few days during the summer of 1868; in a single township 926 head of cattle were swept away; on a single farm more than 400 others contracted the disease and died. These examples are all taken from the State of Illinois; but Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas suffered enormously as well, and in all cases the animals which died had been upon pastures or grounds which had previously been occupied by Texas or other southern cattle. This great outbreak of 1868 led to a number of investigations, among which we may refer particularly to the valuable work done by the Metropolitan Board of Health, by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and by the Chicago Board of Health. In every case a disease was described having substantially the same character-drooping head and ears, weakness of limbs, constipation, bloody urine, high temperature, ending in death after three or four days, or even longer. And in every case the disease was supposed to have been caused by Texas cattle. The alarm produced by the terrible losses of 1868 was such that the movements of these animals have since been regulated, and comparatively few have been carried directly from Texas to the pastures of the North, though there is never a year but that some such cases occur, and we learn of them by the disease which invariably attacks the native cattle. It is not the Texas cattle alone which are charged with spreading this fatal disease, though the enormous losses caused by these animals from 1866 to 1868 were sufficient to link the name of Texas indissolubly with the malady. I have already referred to outbreaks caused by South Carolina cattle, and if we make a thorough inspection of the Southern States we will find a vast district, stretching from the Rappahannock in Virginia to the Rio Grande, which has the reputation of sending forth cattle that though remaining healthy themselves are endowed with a mysterious power of spreading disease and death wherever they are carried. I could detail to you instances of this kind which have occurred in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee sufficient to fill a vol ume-cases observed independently of each other, but in which the same conclusions were reached with a unanimity that is really surprising. Having studied the apparently reliable investigations of others to whom I have referred, having gone over much of the southern territory alleged to be infected with this disease, and having traced many outbreaks to cattle from this district, you may judge of my astonishment when I read the conclusions which were reached by a member of this Association who seems to have devoted considerable time to a study of the subject. Dr. Smith has "been trying," he tells us, "to ascertain whether the cattle of Texas are habitually unhealthy or diseased; whether any such disease prevailed among them as made them dangerous as sources of infection if driven to northern markets; and to find out whether it ever occurred that these cattle being themselves healthy, could nevertheless communinicate not only once, but habitually disease to healthy cattle with which they came in contact." And from these investigations he concludes that "it certainly seems an error to suppose that any danger is incurred by the transportation to northern markets of Texas cattle." In other words Dr. Smith would have us believe not only that all the losses attributed to Texas fever have been caused by some other disease, but that the Texas or southern cattle have not brought the infection and are not responsible for the damage. On the other hand, my own conclusions are diametrically opposed to such a view; but this alone would hardly have led me to contest the matter as I am now doing. It is only when I consider that a very large territory is now overrun with the permanent infection of this disease, that this infection is continually advancing, and that hundreds of thousands of dollars are annually lost through ignorance of its character, and that it can only be held in check by rigorous sanitary laws, that I determined to present my views to this influential body in such a form as to leave no occasion for a misunderstanding. Dr. Smith furnishes three lines of observations by which he attempts to establish the innocuousness of Texan cattle, and from these he concludes: 1st. That Texan cattle killed for food are generally free from pathological lesions. 2d. That the native Texan cattle "are singularly free from disease." 3d. "That the sickness and mortality among the imported cattle are due to an acclimating process." These conclusions, it seems to me, are not only based upon insufficient evidence, but they could never have been reached without excluding and ignoring a very important part of the facts, which you will find in the papers which he has presented to this Association. To show that such is the case, I will review these papers with sufficient detail to justify this assertion. First, as to the post mortem appearances. Dr. Smith's report of 1881 contains particulars in regard to 250 animals which were examined at fourteen different places by fifteen observers. Two of these found bloody serum in the pericardium in a certain number of cases, twelve as stated in the table, though there seems to be some doubt about the number. Dr. Buffington found fatty degeneration of the liver in four out of fifty animals. The microscope was not used, but he was satisfied of its exis tence from the color and general appearance. In eight cases the gall bladder was reddened. Dr. Gorgas reported: "The livers in all cases were markedly yellow and somewhat softer than they should be. The color had the appearance of bile staining." When we remember that one of the most frequent lesions of Texas fever, as seen at the North is a softening and yellow coloration of the liver, due, as Dr. Stiles demonstrated, to repletion of the biliary radicles and to yellow staining, the result of a mixture of blood with the bile, we are in a position to appreciate the significance of the yellow coloration noticed by those two observers. The appearance of the spleen is of even more interest to us, because it is the organ which suffers beyond all others in Texas fever. It seems to be admitted that the spleen averages a greater weight in Texan than in Northern cattle, but I do not care to lay great stress on this indication, it can at best have but a negative significance. Not so, however, with individual spleens so heavy as to suggest disease. In one cow this organ weighed five and three-quarter pounds, and was associated with bloody serum in the pericardium, with a "spotted” condition of the mucous membrane of the stomach and a reddened bladder. Two other spleens weighed over five pounds, and four between three and four pounds. In a case where the spleen weighed five and one-eighth pounds, it was described as "pulpy," the pelvis of the kidneys was "streaked," the liver had the appearance of fatty degeneration, the gall bladder was reddened, the lining membrane of the bladder showed hemorrhage, and that of the fourth stomach petechiæ. The consistency of the spleen was described differently by the different observers. One says, inclined to flabbiness; another says, soft, brittle, easily broken down and very vascular; a third says normal; a fourth calls it the consistence of jelly; a fifth, pulpy; a sixth, doughy rather than firm; a seventh, rather soft and brittle, and four others firm, one adding solid. Dr. Smith adds: "It would seem, in reference to consistency and color, that different observers, according to their particular idiosyncrasy, described the same condition by different terms." For my part I cannot look at the matter in this way. It is impossible to conceive that a spleen which would appear to one medical man to be firm and solid, would appear to another competent observer to be soft, brittle, easily broken 4 down, pulpy, or having the consistency of jelly. The appearance described by the latter class of terms is so similar to what is seen in acute cases of Texas or southern fever that it seems more than probable that four or five of the above observers described organs more or less affected by the disease. We are the more inclined to this view because of the lesions associated with these abnormal appearances. In one case the spleen was spoken of as "dark colored," it weighed five and three-quarter pounds, and there was at the same time bloody serum in the pericardium; the lining membrane of the fourth stomach was "spotted," and the bladder was "light red." In a second case, the spleen weighed five and one-eighth pounds, and the membrane of the fourth stomach was "spotted." In a third case the spleen was "pulpy," the liver yellow, the pelvis of the kidneys "streaked," the lining membrane of the bladder showed hemorrhage, and that of the fourth |