266 EPITOME OF EVIDENCE ON PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 



very unsuccessful. Inoculation does not usually arrest the dis- 

 ease until the old cases are removed, as I can show you by 

 statistics. If a diseased animal is in an extremely bad state, 

 the inoculation, to a very large degree, has no power on the 

 other animals until it is removed. It is possible to detect the 

 disease, by the aid of the thermometer, knowing it to be in the 

 neighbourhood, but the thermometer is positively useless after 

 the acute stage is over. As a general principle, the thermo- 

 meter is only useful in the febrile stage. The consolidation 

 of lung resulting from pleuro-pneumonia gives you no different 

 physical condition than does a patch from any other disease. 

 If you suspect pleuro-pneumonia, and use the thermometer, 

 it is the earliest guide to its presence, as at present known, 

 or possibly ever will be known. On March 22, 1886, J. 

 sent a cow to Leith slaughter-house. She proved to be the 

 subject of pleuro-pneumonia, and was slaughtered. He did 

 not report, but we got our report indirectly. I visited the 

 byre the same evening, or the next, and I found the cows 

 had been inoculated by A. Now, on the 31st of March I took 

 out a cow with pleuro-pneumonia which the owner said had 

 been distinctly declared by A. in the morning to be right. 

 She had pleuro-pneumonia very markedly. I found her tem- 

 perature to be 105°. On 13th April I took out one cow 

 from his b}Te as the subject of old pleuro-pneumonia. I pointed 

 out another cow alongside of her, and they were both found to 

 have pleuro-pneumonia. One had had the disease certainly 

 three or four months. The lung was in the usual condition seen 

 in old pleuro-pneumonia. Neither of these cows took the 

 inoculation though it was practised on them. From the same 

 b}Te on 7th May I took out another cow under identical 

 circumstances, and on post-mortert% examination it was found 

 that the cow had been diseased for three or four months. 

 She also had been inoculated on March 22. That beast had 

 had pleuro-pneumonia certainly three or four months. All 

 fever hastens the breaking up of damaged tissue. I think 

 that the fever established by the inoculation would arouse 

 fresh action in such a lung lesion. I will give you another 

 case. On the 9th July a cow was detected at the slaughter- 

 house, belonging to Mr M'L. She had been sold by him 

 at one of the marts on the Tuesday. She had been bought 

 by Mr W., and sent to the slaughter-house in the usual 

 course of trade, 9th July. The post-mortenx revealed pleuro- 

 pneumonia of twelve or fourteen days' standing. I found 

 twenty-one cows and one bull in his b}Te. I inoculated 

 twenty cows, leaving one uninoculated at the owner's desii'e. 

 The bull was a Danish bull, and had been in the place 

 for some months. Its antecedents I could not trace. On 



