438 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



yet known. This is the employment of sulphurous acid gas, in 

 other words, simple fumigation with sulphur. It is of easy ap- 

 plication and trifling cost ; care and judgment are, however, re- 

 quired. Let some bits of brimstone be burned on live coals con- 

 tained in a suitable vessel or dish, (so as to avoid all risk of com- 

 municating fire, ) and the fumes allowed to mix with the air of the 

 building, penetrating every crevice, and filling the coats of ani- 

 mals. 



It was formerly thoiight that these fumes we're highly deleteri- 

 ous ; but such is not the case unless inhaled in excess. It would 

 indeed be easy to induce complete suffocation ; but the air may 

 be so far impregnated with sulphurous acid as to be very disa- 

 greeable and uncomfortable to breathe, and no harm ensue, but 

 great good. An ounce or two is enough to burn at once for a 

 barn of from six to twelve or twenty cattle, and the operation 

 should be repeated regularly twice a day. The fumes should per- 

 vade all parts of the room equally, and not be stronger than the 

 attendant can bear with moderate discomfort. 



The use of sulphites, in case of cattle disease, the efiicacy of 

 which depends on the same agent, namely, sulphurous, acid, was 

 spoken of in my report of 1868, pages 226, 228 ; and of this fu- 

 migation method, I may say that, while I have no personal know- 

 ledge of its efiicacy in the foot and mouth disease, yet from what 

 is stated of its success, upon what appears to be reliable testi- 

 mony, in connection with what is known of its use in arresting 

 other epidemics, I have no hesitation in commending its employ- 

 ployment ; in this respect fully agreeing with the remarks of a 

 writer in the (English) Country Gentleman' s 3Iagazine, who says : 

 " Our belief in the value of this means of ' combatting' epidemic 

 illness, is materially strengthened by the expression of those who 

 have for years habitually resorted to it, as a refuge, during the 

 prevalence of familiar scourges, such as measles, scarlctina, 

 whooping cough, typhus fever, &c., by the remarkable and hith- 

 erto unwonted immunity from such which not only individuals, 

 but families and even communities have enjoyed, coincidenly, to 

 speak cautiously, with its intelligent and stated employment ; 

 from the reports which have reached the discoverer from all parts 

 of the world, as to the, at least, modifying influence which it 

 seemed to shed over intractable prevailing maladies ; and last, 

 not least, from tlic willingly accorded opinion of many of the 



