Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1875 — The Foot and Mouth Disease. [ARTICLE]

The Foot and Mouth Disease.

The contagious and destructive disease that has destroyed so many herds in England and on the Continent has again reached these shores, and several cases of what appears to be the genuine foot and mouth disease have appeared in Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri. If these cases are correctly reported no time should be lost in taking such preventive measures as are possible to prevent it spreading. Unfortunately, but little can be done, but unquestionably no precaution should be neglected. Even in England, where the small territory and uniform laws permit almost perfect Governmental supervision, it has been found impossible to establish sufficiently rigid quarantine, and in our own large area, under the many State codes, we may not hope to do as well. But we can do something and profit by the experience of our English cousins. The plague differs from those familiar to American stock-raisers, poisonous secre tions being continually given off from the head and feet and carried upon the feet of animals to other places. Even birds have been known to cany the contagion from one herd to another. Mr. Henry Reese, the distinguished veterinarian of England, gives the following advice in case of an attack:

“ The secretion of the nostrils and feet of an animal affected with the disease is so highly infectious that if a small quan tity of it be rubbed on tbe nostrils of a sound animal the disease is communicated in a few hours. So if the instant symptoms of the disease arc observed, the affected animal is isolated in some secure place and kept well littered down with straw, and the feet and nostrils are carefully cleaned night and morning with a solution of carbolic acid—-one part of acid to forty parts of water—it will effectually destroy all powers of infection and prevent the spread of the disease.” * A cooking mixture for the animals at tacked is composed of half pound salts, quarter ounce niter, quarter ounce ginger and three ounces gin in three pints of thin gruel for grown cattle—quarter of this dose to be given to sheep—and the nostrils to be cleansed three times a day with warm watef, and then to be washed out, by means of a syringe, with a solution of carbolic acid—one large tablespoonful of the acid to half a pint of warm water —after which, the head of the animal being raised, a tablespoonful of warm olive-oil may be poured into each nostril. The feet, after being cleansed, should also be washed with a stronger solution of carbolic acid, say one pint of acid to ten pints of water, and then smeared with an ointment of one part of tar to two of palm-oil. The animal, if possible, should be fed on green food, with a fair allowance of grain, and drink allowed only after each dressing.— N. Y. World.