384 ANNUAL KECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



are not always spared when exposed to a repeated attack. 

 11. It is impossible to say how many years such animals as 

 have survived the inoculation of rinderpest remain protected 

 against a new infection ; possibly during their whole lives. 

 An immunity has been shown for a period of at least six 

 years, this being the extent to which the inquiries of the com- 

 mittee have carried them. 12. The question whether inocu- 

 lation has any influence upon the course of the rinderpest 

 when the natural disease has attacked the same herd can not 

 now be definitely answered. 13. Dysentery is no protection 

 against rinderpest, as animals attacked with this disease do 

 not lose their susceptibility to the infection of rinderpest 

 when exposed to its influence. 14. The discharges from the 

 eyes and nose are the most efficient of all means of propa- 

 gating the disease. The result of the inoculation was the 

 same, whether applied on the neck, the ears, or the tail; 

 whether it was communicated by drawing through a thread 

 saturated with virus, or by inserting a strip of the skin cut 

 from an animal which had died of the disease. The charac- 

 teristic features of rinderpest present themselves generally 

 between the fourth and eighth day after inoculation ; and 

 those animals in which the disease becomes fatal generally 

 died on the sixth day after the outbreak. 



Experiments with reference to the power of infection re- 

 siding in the skin of diseased animals resulted as follows : a. 

 Sound cattle can be affected by fresh or by imperfectly dried 

 and cleaned skins of affected ones. b. The skins of diseased 

 animals which have been simply cleaned by washing with lye 

 and ashes or lime-water, or which have been dried at a con- 

 siderable degree of heat, or thoroughly dried in the open air, 

 do not communicate the infection. The drying of the skins, 

 however, should be conducted, if in the air, at a distance 

 from stables or meadows, and in winter artificial heat must be 

 employed. 



In conclusion, the committee make the following remarks : 

 Although the result of the experiments prosecuted to the 

 present time upon inoculation do not entitle the committee 

 to present inoculation as a preservative against the propa- 

 gation of the rinderpest, they believe that land proprietors 

 should be authorized to establish inoculating institutions at 

 their own expense, the application to be made with the con- 



