Read more: http://horsetalk.co.nz/2014/02/17/how-e ... z2vzxOtfwVAustralia’s equine flu outbreak of 2007 may have crippled the racing industry, but an 1872 outbreak in North America brought the entire US economy to a virtual standstill.
Horses powered the economy and the outbreak, which became known as the Great Epizootic, swept across the nation like wildfire.
Official estimates put the number of affected horses at between 80% and 99%. Ports and transportation came to a standstill. Firemen were reduced to pulling their own fire tenders.
Locomotives also came to a halt as coal could not be delivered to power them.
Even the US Cavalry was reduced to fighting the Apaches on foot, who likewise found their mounts too sick to do battle.
How Equine Flu brought the US to a standstill
Very interesting, thanks. Here is a tangential article, a paper "Presented by Thomas G. Murnane, DVM, DACVPM Brigadier General, US Army Retired to the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Veterinary Medical History Society in New Orleans, LA, July 21, 2008", wherein the author outlines the career of Dr James Law upon whose report to the Commissioner of Agriculture in 1872 much of the recent articles describing the equine influenza outbreak are dependent. Thanks to Cuchulaine O Reilly at the Long Riders Guild for bringing this stuff to light again.
http://www.lrgaf.org/medical/jameslaw-murnane.htm
http://www.lrgaf.org/medical/jameslaw-murnane.htm