190 ON INOCULATION AS A ME.VNS FOE THE 



sequel of pleuro-pneumonia, appears to throw cousiderable diffi- 

 culty in the way of inoculation. There are no external vesicles 

 or pustules from which to obtain " the virus,'"' as in other con- 

 tagious maladies ; and, if we take the serum of the blood, the 

 probability is, the veritable disease in its Avorst form may be 

 established, and we are no nearer obtaining the desirable end. 

 Inoculation at present affords so little hope, that it becomes a 

 pressing question whether we are not neglecting golden moments 

 in which to deal with the disease more safely and with expedi- 

 tion. The experience of Britain is that of the known world 

 where cattle traffic is carried on, and that is, internal safety from 

 foreign animal plagues, and the avoidance of useless and 

 harassing restrictions can only be obtained by regulating — not 

 impeding — the importation of foreign animals. If those gentle- 

 men who recently waited upon the Home Secretary in the 

 character of public benefactors, but who in reality are first 

 actuated by their own desire for prosperity, are really anxious 

 to avoid, as they say, famine prices in meat, let them uproot the 

 cause which they have planted on our soil, and, instead of live 

 cattle being brought over in their ill-applied ships, let them 

 bring the dead carcases of fatted animals. It can make no 

 difference in choice whether they bring live or dead animals, if 

 they only desire to bring us food ; but it is a lame argument by 

 which they seek to show us that the easiest thing is impossible, 

 though it is done every week of our lives. It is sufficiently 

 obvious that the plagues at present stalking through our land 

 are imported and spread by the animals suffered to go over the 

 length and breadth of it, and it is out of the power of inoculation, 

 or of any legal means affecting the movement of stock inland, 

 to get rid of them while cattle are brought in alive. As soon as 

 they are slaughtered at ports of debarkation, or brought over as 

 already dead, we shall obtain a rapid and satisfactory decrease 

 of disease ; otherwise we can have no hope whatever of freedom. 

 Flesh-food must advance in price, our native stock are seriously 

 imperilled, and we run a certain risk of communicating so much 

 disease to mankind by the hooding of our markets with question- 

 able beef — the result of so many animals dying or slaughtered 

 in disease. 



If the existence of a virus in the fluid from the lungs were 

 undoubted, the practice of inoculation would even then be most 

 unjustifiable. It is decidedly a most impolitic measure to keep 

 animals alive that are suffering from a malignant contagious 

 disease. As long as they live they are spreading a i?oison, no 

 matter how mild is that disease when developed. It therefore 

 follows, that, by slaughter at that period when the malady is in 

 incubation, we put a stop to that manufacture, and consequently 

 also to the spread of disease. If we first encourage owners to 



