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26
July, ten days before the first Order in Council was
issued, it had appeared at Islington, Hackney,
Whitecbapel, Holborn, Kingsland, Dalston, Somcrs
Town, Camden Town, Hendon, and several other
places. According to Professor Simonds, it visited a
dairy opposite the Royal Veterniary College on the
8th of July, and by the 19th it had killed 20 out
of the 21 cows in it. Early in July it was in
Norfolk, at the farm of Mr. Leeds, of Whitwell,
near Norwich, and soon after it was in Suffolk and
Shropshire. About the same time it was among
the cattle on the Essex marshes, and in the farms
of Surrey, and before the end of the month it had
reached the North of England, and was spreading
through Scotland.
In tracing the history of these early cases, there
is nothing whatever to connect them with the
Revel cargo; indeed, apart from the fact that the
cargo itself was proved to be healthy, and showed
no sign of disease ten days after leaving Revel,
there is nothing to indicate that any single case of
cattle plague occurred in the localities where the
animals were sold and slaughtered. Even with respect
to London, twenty-six days must have elapsed
between the sale of the oxen in the Metropolitan
Cattle Market and the first appearance of the
disease at Islington. This is too long a period for
its incubation, for the time is limited to ten days.
It was stated, indeed, at the international congress