Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1914 — The Foot and Mouth Disease. [ARTICLE]

The Foot and Mouth Disease.

The following communication appeared in a recent issue of the Indianapolis News, and we copy same for the reason that the views therein expressed coincide with what The Democrat has said regarding the scare the animal husbandry department of the U. S. Agricultural Department has been throwing into the People: •* -gi Sir—Having recently visited various localities in this state where the foot and mouth disease among live stock has been or is prevalent. I desire to make some comment relative to the disease and the treatment in vogue under the management of the state and, national authorities. Some twenty-two years ago, while practicing as a veterinarian in the state of Michigan, a plague broke out among the live stock in my locality very similar and, in my opinion, precisely identical with the present in section. My services were promptly invoked by the owners of the stock in that locality and, acting under my direction, the disease stock were segre gated at once and the afflicted of all the herds in the community placed in a common pound for my treat ment. The animals not affected were also placed under my charge for such preventive treatment as I should deem necessary. Only a few, I think perhaps but three or four of the considerable number stricken, died, ana the disease was in these instances

well advanced when my services were invoked. I experienced no great difficulty in treating the malady with success. The preventive measures I employed among the nonaffected herds were effectual to the extent that only four or five head were afterward afflicted, which were at once Ijlaced in the common pound and subsequently yielded to my treatment. The disease was thus “nipped in the bud” with but little ado and without creating any very great ex-' citement, such as from the very first in the present breaking out of the disease seems to have been the case. Thus when the present plague broke out and excited accounts of it were heralded through the papers, all over the country, I took an early opportunity to visit the region affected', I more out of curiosity to determine' whether the disease was the same as ' that treated by me many years ago as above indicated. I found it to be identically the same without the shadow of a doubt. I found t'he quarantine so rigid and the espionage so alert that I was not permitted to make a diagonosis of a typical case, such as I should have'liked, but I saw and learned enough to satisfy me that the foot and mouth disease was a recurrence of the same malady I had formerly treated. The advent of zero weather, I am convinced, will have the effect to practically eradicate the disease, or, at least temporarily prevent its spread. This was my observation ot it: but unless effectual preventive steps are taken in all localities where i’ has raged.it will break out again with the advent of warm weather after the winter is past. The main purpose of this communication, however, is to express my disapproval and enter my protest against what I believe is an unnecessary destruction of animal life. It certainly occurs to me as being sinful and useless butchery and waste. I would not criticise the killing of the infected beasts, though, to my mind, even this is unnecessary, but to take a whole herd of sound ano healthy cattle and inflict the merciless death penalty, simply because one or two of the herd have sore mouths or foot, it seems to me, is extremely barbarous at the least. The same logic that prompts such slgughter would by analogy suggest the Killing of an entire family of human jeings becaus’© for sootli one member of the family had become afflicted with cholera or smallpox. Surely such proceedings is a sad commentary 'on boasted veterinary science a>d the statutes of the commonwealth forbidding cruelty to animals, better to segregate the well ones and invoke the best veterinary skill for their healing. In closing I desire to say that I have long been of the opinion that the use of animal fertilizer is the cause of this disease. Had I time and space I could, I think, submit potent reasons for this belief. „ D ' A ' WILLIAMS, V. S. Shelbyville, Ind.