296 REPORT ON PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 



enable the Society to do so. That resohition in no way inter- 

 fered with the memorial, because it dealt with the future, 

 whereas the memorial dealt with the present. It was given in 

 evidence before the Highland Society that veterinary surgeons 

 were utterly at variance on certain very important points — 

 amongst others, on the question of inoculation. On the one 

 hand, it was said that the inoculated animals became living 

 centres of disease, and conveyed the disease to all animals with 

 which they came in contact. On the other hand, it was alleged 

 that even if the animal was diseased to such an extent that the 

 veterinary surgeons could not detect it before inoculation, the 

 effect of inoculation would rapidly develop the latent disease 

 and bring it to a head, but that inoculation would render a 

 healthy animal innocuous, and would have the same effect as 

 vaccination in relation to smallpox. In his county 348 animals 

 were successfully inoculated in September and November last 

 year, and they had not been able to trace a single further out- 

 break to any one of those animals, and they had not found that 

 any animals brought in contact with them had had pleuro- 

 pneumonia in consequence. These 348 animals were still living, 

 and were perfectly healthy and sound. The total loss to the 

 county had been £1240. Had the animals been slaughtered 

 they would have had to pay over £2000 in further compensa- 

 tion. Mr Spreull, of Dundee, had carried on similar experi- 

 ments. 



Lord Cranbrook said he would like Professor Brown, of the 

 Agricultural Department, to deal with this point, as that gentle- 

 man could speak with a technical knowledge to which he himself 

 could not pretend. 



Professor Brown said that an investigation into the nature of 

 pleuro-pneumonia had been carried on by all the scientists in 

 Europe for something like thirty years, and there were certain 

 points upon which the authorities were diametricallj^ opposed. 

 For example, they had not discovered the particular microbe on 

 which pleuro-pneumonia could be proved to depend. Mr Pools, 

 in Rotterdam, had recently published a paper stating that he 

 had discovered it, and giving a description of it. He had re- 

 quested that gentleman to send him some preparations that he 

 might examine it, but Mr, Poels replied regretting that he had 

 not kept any. The Department had been carrying on cultiva- 

 tions for some time, but they had altogether failed to detect any 

 organisms which jjroduced the results which followed from the 

 organism discovered by Mr Poels. In regard to inoculation, the 

 evidence was by no means precise on certain points. It was 

 proved that inoculation gave a certain amount of immunity 

 against the actual disease, but that it was not a sure protective was 

 a fact which he could assert from his own observations during the 



