178 ON IN0CT7LATI0N AS A MEANS FOE THE 



was spreading as rapidly as before. The Commission was ap- 

 pointed to consider the subject in relation to compensation for 

 cattle slaughtered, together with the various remedial measures 

 which had been adopted by owners of stock, and especially the 

 results of inoculation. The report gives the particulars of lengthy 

 examinations of different witnesses, and concludes with the fol- 

 lowing contradictory paragraph: — " Your committee cannot con- 

 elude their report without some reference to inoculation ; and, 

 from the evidence which has been given by Messrs Pottie and 

 Bruce, and several other parties who have tried it, apparently 

 with great success in both diseased and sound cattle, it appears 

 to 3^our committee that if it is judiciously performed at an early 

 stage of the disease, there will be no necessity in future to resort 

 to destruction of infected cattle, unless they are attacked very 

 severely ; and they strongly recommend as a preventive that 

 the increase should be inoculated while young. But sufficient 

 time has not elapsed since the operations were performed to test 

 their efficiency, so as to warrant your committee in giving a 

 decided expression of opinion v/hether inoculation can be con- 

 sidered as a cure, or preventive, or both." 



The evidence of Mr Pottie contains the following extraordinary 

 statement : — " I believe it [pleuro-pneumonia] is contagious, and 

 this, I think, is proved by the fact that by inoculation we can 

 produce an artificial disease by means of the virus taken from a 

 diseased animal. We cannot, so far as our experiments have 

 been made, produce lung disease by inoculating another part of 

 the animal ; but we can produce a disease similar in its character, 

 in another part of the animal, to that which we find produced 

 naturally in the lungs." 



Next we have the conclusions of Dr Eeviglio, a veterinary 

 surgeon of eminence of Turin. He gives a summary of the 

 various reports which have emanated from the different govern- 

 ments, and from these, as well as from his own experiments, he 

 deduces : 



" 1st, That this inoculation, discovered and recommended by 

 Dr Willems, is not based on scientific principles." 



" 27id, That all the facts obtained by the several experiments 

 have concurred in showing that the virus, when introduced into 

 living tissues, produces infiammation in no way different from 

 that caused by setons, &c., except that it has a greater tendency 

 to a gangrenous result." 



" 3rd, That if we admit its revulsive effects, it still possesses 

 no advantages over therapeutic agents in common use in veteri- 

 nary practice." 



" 4:th, That as inoculation is frequently followed by serious 

 and sometimes fatal consequences, it is just and reasonable to 

 give a preference to the usual derivatives." 



