432 PROTECTIVE INOCULATION FOR BOVINE PLEURO-PNEUMONIA, 



latter herds, in their turn, or at least the vaccinated members of 

 the same, would repeat the same play. 



It might seem as if I am somewhat exaggeratins", by reporting 

 things which are not yet actually demonstrated ; but I only state 

 here what we want to know with certainty ; and the importance of 

 the whole question of protective treatment requires us to take an 

 unprejudiced view of it. When the Netherlands Government 

 introduced inoculation for the disease, they ordered the inoculated 

 cattle to be isolated for some time, thus preventing their mixing 

 so soon with others not inoculated ; everybody admits that this 

 was a wise act, and people at that .time knew about protection 

 against pleuro-pneumonia not much less than they do now-a-days. 

 Whether the scheme adopted by the Netherlands, could with 

 advantage be imitated by Australia, I cannot tell. 



Finally it is an acknowledged fact that, when the plague has 

 appeared in a herd, and inoculation has to be resorted to, owners 

 often experience difficulties in finding the proper vaccin, in pre- 

 serving it for some time, or by lacking the manual skill required 

 for performing the operation. Thus consequences may result, as 

 they in fact do, which were not intended. The story of tailless 

 cows and oxen is too well-known to Australians to need its 

 relation on this occasion. It simply shows how miserably a 

 measure, otherwise and in itself of a harmless nature, can be 

 abused in the hands of ignorant persons, who may even do 

 more harm by imparting diseases, e. g. tuberculosis, to originally 

 quite healthy animals. Although, in my opinion, not too much 

 weight ought to be attached to this obstacle in the practice of 

 inoculation, because care and experience can reduce it to a 

 minimum, yet the whole procedure is, from the above reason alone, 

 liable to become discredited in the same way as human vaccination 

 has been, and is still to some extent, discredited by the very fact, 

 that it has been occasionally the means of introducing a host of 

 anything but desirable skin and other diseases. 



Let us now briefly review what has been dealt with above. We 

 see that, on the one side, a majority of men and countries advocate 



