EPITOME OF EVIDENCE ON PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 259 



previously in contact, and pnt them together on separate pre- 

 mises a mile distant, and on which no cattle had been for twelve 

 months ; we kept them three or four months. They were 

 examined by the chief constable and by the veterinary surgeon, 

 and at the end of three or four months we asked the local authority 

 to go and examine them. They came with two of the veterinary 

 surgeons, and they examined them outwardly and saw nothing. 

 We volunteered to send to the local slaughter-house the two 

 calves. The inspectors went there, and pronounced them per- 

 fectly healthy. We have still one with us. The disease 

 appeared in June, but it was near the beginning of July before 

 we inoculated. Those cattle were put up on the 5th of 

 November, and were kept over three months. Those that 

 were found fit subjects for inoculation all lived. Mr Rutherford 

 was not satisfied with the taking of the inoculation, and he 

 told me that he had inoculated them the second time. They 

 took it the second time. I saw the lesion of those he did 

 a second time. They were swollen in the tails. The 

 increase of thickness was nearly twice the normal size ; he 

 had already cut off parts of the tails of two. Looking back 

 over the whole events of the outbreak, I would inoculate again, 

 I have no proof that those cattle that were inoculated would 

 have taken the disease if they had been left alone. I was 

 not present when Mr Rutherford made the inoculation ; but he 

 told me he was afraid that the thread had not been sufficiently 

 saturated, or that in drawing the thread into the opening 

 sufficient care had not been taken to prevent the virus being 

 stripped off. It was done by his own assistant, who had been taught 

 his own method. Mr Rutherford was not satisfied with the first 

 inoculation. I am not able to say that his inoculation produced 

 a difference from the assistant's inoculation. Some of the tails 

 swelled on the first occasion. He examined them, and was 

 not quite satisfied. After having inoculated them himself, he 

 was satisfied. He saw them a fortnight after to satisfy himself. 

 He was there twice. The operation of inoculation is quite 

 simple. It appeared to me to be a matter not of great difficulty. 

 I had fifteen cattle in the cow-byre. I may say that our 

 outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia was the first outbreak that 

 was known of or reported to the authorities in our district for 

 some years before. There had not been a case in the Stewartry 

 of Kirkcudbright for five or six years. Ours was the first one 

 that was declared to be pleuro-pneumonia, and the first 

 animal that was infected was in our breeding stock, and 

 we had had it several years. Soon after there was an outbreak 

 of pleuro-pneumonia three miles off, and another outbreak ten 

 iniles off, and certainly there had been no direct interchange of 

 cattle with us. We adopted inoculation on our own responsibility. 



