250 EPITOME OF EVIDENCE ON PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 



country by stamping out, by slaughtering, and by inoculation ; 

 I could not say, but if the whole country could be compared 

 to, say the city of Edinburgh, it would be a very great 

 advantage. Edinburgh has had to pay thousands of pounds 

 of indemnification every year, and now it does not pay as many 

 hundreds. I believe that the inspector gets more for his salary 

 than the amount that is received for indemnification, and the 

 cause of that is inoculation. Undoubtedly the majority of 

 owners in Edinburgh inoculate when disease occurs. There 

 is no doubt that if inoculation was to be dealt with by the whole 

 body of inspectors as it has come to be done by a few, it would 

 be a disease that they could localise to the spot. I think inocu- 

 lation undoubtedly better than stamping out. If inoculation 

 were pursued in Ireland especially, where the disease is con- 

 stantly in existence, with the same success as it can be done in 

 Scotland, we would have little pleuro-pneumonia ; and when it 

 did exist it could be dealt with by a skilled veterinarian, and it 

 would become a matter of not the slightest consequence what- 

 ever. You would have the one per cent, that might die from 

 inoculation, and also four or five from those that did not take 

 the inoculation, owing to their having the disease, and you might 

 even have an outbreak occasionally. But what is all that when 

 you know that you can stop it by slaughtering two or three ? 

 You cannot possibly be certain to be free from disease even 

 if you killed off thousands. If you could slaughter ail the 

 cattle in Ireland, and stop breeding for twelve months, you 

 might prevent it. The inspection in Ireland is very bad. 

 There is an inspection, but it is a kid-glove kind of inspec- 

 tion. I do not hold that having inoculated an animal at one 

 time gives it immunity for ever, but I think it highly probable. 

 If new animals were brought into a byre they would not, if 

 diseased, affect the inoculated ones. If any one can cultivate 

 the virus, and prove that that virus is as capable as the 

 other of preventing an outbreak, it would be very beneficial. 

 We might have several outbreaks, but this cultivated virus 

 would arrest them. If one could show that he can cultivate 

 the vii'us, I could see that in a certain number of years, 

 because every animal would be inoculated with this cultivated 

 virus, the disease would die out. But a national measure of 

 that kind is not necessary, because in the plain fact of an 

 outbreak you have the material and the means for putting an 

 end to it. I have long advocated the system of compulsory 

 inoculation along with slaughtering and rearrangement of the 

 Quarantine Laws. I think it is quite possible that the auction 

 marts that the animals have been in that had the disease would 

 remain dangerous for a certain number of days ; but the most 



