252 EPITOME OF EVIDENCE ON PLEUEO-PNEUMONIA. 



animals in every instance in the face of the disease. I must 

 admit that some of these animals may have had the disease in 

 an exceedingly limited area. In numberless instances I have 

 over and over again, immediately when those animals recovered 

 from the inoculation, placed fresh stock amongst them, and yet 

 they remained perfectly healthy. That is not my experience 

 alone, but that of all who have taken an intelligent observation of 

 the matter. Inoculation in the tail tends to develop more rapidly 

 the lung mischief in cases that are not healing up. In those 

 cases that are healing up, the inoculation simply fails. Those 

 animals that have become naturally cured of the disease should 

 be destroyed. Those are the most dangerous animals to go 

 about. I admit that in the best of hands you may have 

 isolated cases of animals not accepting the inoculation, and four 

 or five months afterwards showing pleuro-pneumonia through 

 the thread being stripped, or other cause, but such are. rare. 

 The same thing happens in the vaccination of children. An 

 animal may succumb, but that does not affect the main argu- 

 ment. In regard to the cutting off of the tails, I feel whether 

 the tail is cold when I go round the stock that is inoculated, 

 and if I find that the tip of the tail is cold, I remove the dead 

 part of the tissue. If the lesion is confined to the exact seat of 

 operation, and the tip of the tail has the warmth of natural heat, 

 I do not interfere, but I make a point of seeing all those animals. 

 I would lay it down as a rule not to trust to chance in these 

 matters, but to examine all these tips up to the fifteenth or 

 sixteenth day. The indications that warrant and necessitate 

 removal of the point of the tail are such as would satisfy the 

 surgeon that if it was not removed it would result in gangrene. 

 If you wait till gangrene occurs you will have to remove a con- 

 siderable quantity. It is in the case of gangrene spreading up 

 the tail or where I think it is likely to go, that I amputate. I 

 am not able to jDrevent the exudate lesion spreading ; it must 

 follow its own course. When I have seen inoculation take 

 strong, I have many a time had to amputate up to the top of the 

 tail. My experience enables me to detect quite well what 

 are the appearances of a successful inoculation, but the fear 

 is of inoculation falling into wrong hands. We must train more 

 of our young practitioners, and more of the old ones except 

 some few who have already given it a great deal of attention. 

 It is a pity that inoculation should break do^vn on that ground. 

 It has broken down on that ground in Cumberland. They 

 have given it up now. When I am not quite sure if I 

 have got a right tail lesion my plan is to inoculate again. 

 I am content with a very small indication, so that I get 

 development in the other animals in the same way. The 

 inoculated animal accepts it unmistakablj". I have adopted 



