EPITOME OF EVIDENCE ON PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 249 



out this disease, just as we stamped out rinderpest without inocu- 

 lation. If you do not kill all the animals, less than 10 per cent, 

 would require to be slaughtered according to my method. I 

 think it would just be the first case and any other suspicious 

 case that you would have to kill. All beasts cannot be inocu- 

 lated, because there are some that are not in a suitable condition 

 of body. I do not think it is at all necessary to have compulsory 

 inoculation throughout the whole country. It is more necessary 

 to recognise the fact that inoculation applied to pleuro-pneumonia 

 reduces it from a disease dangerous and rapidly spreading, to a 

 disease easily handled. The infection does not appear to linger 

 about the body or clothing of a man ; the disease comes off from 

 the breath, and is continually being discharged on the premises, 

 and the effects of the virus are more continuous than the acci- 

 dental application to a man's clothing, who is soon out in the 

 open air, where it becomes dissipated. But we should be care- 

 ful to investigate about that as about everything else. The 

 disease will linger about a place about six months. I would 

 insist, in the event of one case, to have everything disin- 

 fected. If there had been no cleaning, that would be sufficient 

 to make it unsafe to put cattle in the byre, but six months' 

 interval would be abundance of time. I would not put cattle 

 into a place where there had been disease already, if six 

 months uninhabited, and without anything being done, for germs 

 of the disease might be hanging or lying about the byre, the 

 woodwork, and so forth. If I were inoculating a part of a herd, 

 and putting the specific virus on their tails, that would not 

 give pleuro-pneumonia in the lung to another animal that had 

 not been inoculated ; it does not produce the lung lesion. When 

 the animal whisks its tail, and the virus gradually dries up, 

 there is no danger to other animals though the virus should be 

 cast about in a dry state. I have tried to inoculate with dry 

 virus, and could not do it. Cobra poison and smallpox poisons 

 would do that, but that is not the case with this poison. 

 All that I say is based on the experience of dealing with him- 

 dreds of outbreaks. The virus should not be kept too long. 

 Extremely cold weather seems to destroy its potency. It keeps 

 longer in cold weather, but it is not so safe. I think it 

 would be important to see by what method satisfactory virus 

 could be preserved, so that a perfectly good thing could be 

 got at any time. I should like very well to see virus that 

 could be kept for any length of time, whether taken from the 

 lung, or by cultivating it. All the Governments in Australia are 

 in favour of inoculation ; you can get a copy of the work relating 

 to these experiments by writing to each of the Governments, 

 notably Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and New South 

 Wales. I cannot make a calculation as to the difference to the 



