VETEEINAEY PROBLEMS. 27 



which enables it to retain any degree of virulence which is 

 conferred upon it for a very considerable time. In this coun- 

 try, anthrax occurs in such small areas and these are so far 

 apart, that the success of such a practice would be doubtful 

 even if we had skilled veterinarians to perform the operation. 

 The plagues from which we suffer most are different ; their 

 viruses are still more unstable, and it becomes our task to 

 master the conditions of virulence, and to learn not only how 

 to attenuate the germs in a uniform and definite manner, but 

 how to hold the virulence at this point for a sufiicient time 

 to enable us to send them to every part of this broad land. 



Then the operation of vaccination as practised in Europe 

 requires a skilful and experienced man ; at present such 

 men are not easily found in the greater part of the stock-rais- 

 ing districts of this country. It becomes necessary, therefore, 

 to simjjlify the operation and to bring it within the compre- 

 hension of any man who can dock a lamb, milk a cow or lead 

 a horse to water. It may not be an easy problem to solve, 

 but we are in a land where Yankee ingenuity prevails, and 

 what cannot be made practical in America is of doubtful 

 utility to the rest of the world. 



Besides these questions, so closely connected with the infi- 

 nitely small organisms which constitute the virus of contagious 

 diseases, there are other veterinary problems which will re- 

 quire all the skill, all the learning, all the appliances of the 

 present day to solve in a satisfactory manner. In a little 

 strip of territory along the Atlantic coast there prevails a 

 lung disease of cattle which cannot be found elsewhere in 

 this whole country. In some few points it has already pre- 

 vailed so long that it is only the oldest inhabitants who can 

 remember the time when they were free from it. Once in a 

 stable, it frequently remains for months and years, and it is 

 often carried considerable distances with cattle from such 

 places. It is not the direct losses from this disease which 

 makes it of such national importance ; but it is the continual 

 menace to the stock interests of the country, the vexatious 

 and false alarms of pleuro-pneumonia here and pleuro-pneu- 

 monia there, where it has never existed, and where we hope 

 it never will reach. These continued alarms make our 

 stockmen anxious for their industry, fearful to invest their 



