20 IXOGULATION AS A PREVENTION OF PLEUEO-PNEUMONIA. 



government the desirability of making inoculation a compulsory 

 measure, the whole of his subordinate inspectors, and the vast 

 majority of the stock-owners, being thoroughly satisfied that it 

 was the only preventive, and the only measure short of whole- 

 sale slaughter, which would eradicate the disease. 



Perhaps, however, the most convincing evidence of its value, 

 certainly the strongest yet afforded in this country, is in the 

 history of my own work among the dairies of Edinburgh, Leith, 

 and elsewhere, both in the county and out of it, where in the 

 two former especially, pleuro-pneumonia had been rampant for 

 years. From information personally gathered, I believe myself 

 quite within the mark when I state, that with few exceptions, 

 all the dairies in and around Edinburgh were more or less infected, 

 and seldom free from the disease for any length of time. I have 

 been credibly informed that it was no uncommon occurrence for 

 a man's stock to be cleaned out twice within one year. 



Such then was the state of matters when I began to urge the 

 dairymen to inoculate. Unfortunately, the bad results which had 

 been obtained by Mr. Gam gee was still fresh in the memory of 

 my clients, so that it was a year or two before I could be allowed 

 to demonstrate that the fault did not lie in the inoculation, but 

 in the mode of carrying it out. 



At length, however, on the 1st February 1878, I was permitted 

 to inoculate some newly bought in poor Irish milkers for a much 

 respected client (Mrs. Cairns), under conditions, which, consider- 

 ing the trial was to be decisive for or against the operation, were 

 by me considered crucial. 



The byres w^ere and had been for a loog time more or less 

 infected, and in spite of alterations, and every other precaution, 

 they had got into that state that it seemed impossible to carry 

 on much longer. There were at the time I operated cows stand- 

 ing in the byres that were affected with pleuro-pneumonia; these 

 were allowed to remain, tied up, I may say, alongside of my 

 inoculated ones. The result, however, I am glad to say, proved 

 at once the value of inoculation when properly done. All of 

 them did well ; more were inoculated, and also did well, and as 

 in a few weeks it was seen they were remaining well, I soon had 

 the gratification of knowing that inoculation was in a fair way of 

 establishiufr itself. 



The story of the follo^wing months is one of incessant labour. 

 Byre after byre was placed in my hands for the one purpose, and 

 in all of them I arrested the ravages of the disease, and by con- 

 tinuing in each case the inoculation of all fresh stock as they 

 were bought in, finally eradicated it. Of course there is always 

 the danger of buying it in. I have frequent instances of such. 

 !N"o great harm, however, results. Those inoculated are not 

 infected, and those uninoculated, if any, are at once protected 

 by the operation. 



