SECRETARY'S REPORT. 241 



" As to 'pleuro-pnetimonia/ he mig-ht say in the outset, that this 

 was a misnomer, and the erroneous name had done not a little to 

 mystify the subject. The name of a disease should always cor- 

 respond with its nature. Pleuro-pneumonia signifies inflammation of 

 the pleura and substance of the lungs ; but this disease was not 

 of an inflammatory character. Is it contagious ? Cases have been 

 mentioned which appear to prove that it is not. We had but too 

 strong evidence that it was contagious. 



This morbific matter entered the system, and when seated there, 

 poisonous exhalations were given off. This was the case in small 

 pox, after the disease had reached a certain stage pustules were 

 formed, and each pustule contained the same morbific matter as 

 was originally inhaled. It was not the case that all a nimals ex- 

 posed were infected any more than it was with man. There must 

 be a susceptibility as well as a cause. Some, constitutions would 

 resist more than others, just as men were differently afiected by 

 strong drinks ; what would intoxicate one man would produce no 

 effect upon another. This opened the way to speak of secondary 

 causes, and how farmers might help nature to resist the disease. 

 Animals were rendered more susceptible by over-crowding. Hence 

 in the London dairies the disease was more rife than anywhere 

 else. Damp and wet yards were also to be avoided, and keeping 

 cattle in places where much dung was fermenting, especially if 

 animal matter was present. There were some pastures which, in 

 dry weather were unexceptionable ; the same pastures in autumn, 

 when exposed to fogs and damp, would engender it. To use plain 

 language, we must have our wits about us. As for the malady itself, 

 it was not an inflammatory, but a local and specific one. The 

 morbific matter enters the blood by respiration, and then concen- 

 trates itself in the lungs. This affection was in many respects 

 very peculiar. 



It is an eminently fatal disease. • 



Bring any of the boasted remedies to a genuine case^ — one fully 

 established to be such by the testimony of competent persons, and 

 they invariably failed. The lungs were aurifying organs, and both 

 in cattle and in man, nature is unable to remove the dejwsits caused 

 by disease, and to substitute sound tissue in the place of that de- 

 stroyed. It ivas always a fatal disease, and it always would be ; the 

 more we know of it, the more positive were we of this. In no one 

 case has an animal ever been cured. The disease is sometimes ar- 



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