PLEURO-PNEUMONIA, RINDERPEST, OR PLAGUE.

Waikato Times, Volume XIV, Issue 1217, 17 April 1880, Page 3

PLEURO-PNEUMONIA, RINDERPEST, OR PLAGUE.

TO THE EDITOE. Sir,— Will yon kindly tell me if it is necessary to run cattle with dogs and horse, to make them cough, in order that you may discern symptoms of pleuro (not lung disease). Being a muff, I would ask you to inform me is there any difference in the blood of a beast infected with pleuro, and a beast infected with lung disease. Again, I would ask you is there any benefit obtained by this hocus-pocus inspection that noAv takes place, For instance, on the company's run, the 4th of this month, they slaughtered two bullocks, the first beast had no symptoms whatever of pleuro ; they killed it through the instructions of Messrs. Naden and Runciman, as a diseased beast, i.e., pleuro- ] pneumonia, and their butcher in opening 1 the beast declared it actually stunk. Now, sir, I never heard of a pleuro beast having any stench above any other, and I was always under the impression that their blood would actually show the differences between those diseases. I hear a blackfellow in Australia, without being a V.S., can discern it without killing a suspicious looking animal. "Would it not be well for some of our South Auckland Cattle Board together with their inspector and VrS. t to pay a visit to Australia, where I have no doubt they would pick up some information they sadly need and come back wiser men, and the small farmers who are now the sufferers would benefit much by their absence. I will conclude by contiadioting Mr Naden when he says inoculation took no effect on Mr Burkes cattle I distinctly say it has, and is there to be seen. Yon will much oblige me by inserting the above. — I am, &c, D. A. McNicol. Hamilton Wednesday. P.S. — I have seen bv this morning's Waikato Times that Mr McNicol' s farm is declared infected by the V.S., on what grounds I fail to .see The animal slaughtered by Mr Naden's instructions showed no signs of disease. If such wholesale condemnation as this to,kes place, any farmer holding cattle may be ruined, or partly so, through the mere suspicion that if the disease is not there it ought to be there. D. A. McNicol. April loth.