Petitions at Cambridge.

Waikato Times, Volume XIV, Issue 1216, 15 April 1880, Page 2

Petitions at Cambridge.

Two petitions, which have been largely signed by the settlers and townspeople, have been drawn up in Cambridge. Both are addressed to to the Board ; the first requesting them to call on Mr Burke to give an account of his conduct in disposing of cattle suffering from disease, and giving the names of certain persons who should be called as witnes&ess. The second petition draws the Board's attention to the conduct of one of the members, Captain Steele, in "suppressing and evading the subject, and concealing from the Board and the country the now known fact thatpleuro-pneumonia existed on the Swamp Company's property," and desires the Board to request him to resign.

Pleuko-pneumoxia, its symptoms and its treatment, must be a subject of general interest at the present moment. Hundreds are anxious to know what are the earlier symptoms of the disease and what, if any, arc its remedies. We have within the last few d.ivs heard it boldly stated, by thobo who profess to be authorities on the matter, that the disease is incurable. This, however, there is good authority for knowing is not the case. The truth is veiy few, scarce any, amongst us know much about pleuro at all, and it may therefore not be amiss if we fall back on well-known and recognised authorities on the subject and see what we can learn from them ; nor must we forget that if a cure is possible in the more severe climate of Great Britain, which wages a cruel and a determined war upon all cases of lung disease, it is likely to be far more possible here where consumptive patients outlive the disease, and men have been known to jog comfortably on to an age they never could have reached at home with one lung almost entirely gone. And first as to the authority from which we intend to draw our present remarks. We have before us the " Cyclopedia of Agriculture," a modern work published by Blackie and Son, edited by John C. Morton, the Editor of the Af/nrultural Gazette, in which the matter contained is treated by fifty of the most eminent fanners, land agents, and scientific men of the day. From this we learn that the earlier symptoms of pleuro-pneumonia arc very slight and obscure, and thus it is that it often wake? g'uit inroads amongst

a herd of cattle before its presence is known. A very slight but short cough, and a little staring of the cofct are the earliest tokens of the disease, and it may run on for weeks in this state. Then with an increase of these symptoms it may be noticed that the effected beast lags behind the herd, and does not feed so readily as before. This is set down by the authority we refer to as " the first stage of the disea>e." Then after some time we may look for the breathing being freatly accelerated, the animal looses esh, and often with great rapidity, and and the appetite is further diminished. This is the second stage. Then comes the third stage, or the hastening of the end j the animal is greatly reduoed, the appetite failing almost entirely, and rumination also ceasing j respiration is greatly accelerated, short and catching ; the beast, indeed, pouts for breath, and soon dies from suilbcation. Now, we hear our readers exclaim this is along {>rocess or run of the disease from first to ast, something quite different to what we hear of where the cattle are suddenly found affected and rapidly get from bad to worse. The facts of the case are, however, that it is not until the second stage of the disease is reached that attentiou is turned to the matter at all, and then, as we are told, it soon rnns its course. It is many weeks since the cattle were landed in Auckland from New South Wales, but it is only within the last week »r fortnight that the disease has become unmistakably apparent, and we might almost comparatively say generally so. The same authority tells us that it is absolutely useless to attempt to treat the disease in its third stage, and of very doubtful service in itssecond. "Itis,"says our authority, "in the first, whilst merely the short husky cough, and the staring c#ats are apparent, but which betoken the existence of the disease with the utmost certanty — It is in this stage that treatment be instituted with a fair probability of success." What that treatment should be is fully perscribed, but we have no intention of trespassing into the domains of the professional man, or of setting up a vague measure that every man may become his own cattle doctfor. What we desire to do is to satisfy a want felt in the public mind generally, namely, the knowledge of what the very earliest symptoms of the disease are, and by making these generally known to enable owners of cattle to diagnose the disease for themselves the moment it appears. It is their duty then to give — they can be punished if they do not — information at once to the authorities of the appearance of the disease, and they will have the benefit of the advice of one of the most competent veterinary surgeons in the colony.