430 The President's Address at General Meeting. 



1866, the attacks of the disease had been reduced withiu very narrow 

 limits. In point of duration, therefore, the great visitation of rinder- 

 pest of the last century, which lasted from June, 1744, to 1757, or 

 thereabouts, varied materially from this. But rinderpest, like other 

 things, travels by railway in these days, and in little more than three 

 months from its first appearance it had invaded more than half the 

 counties of England and a large portion of Scotland. The number of 

 diseased animals which have died or been killed amounted on the 24th 

 of November last, to 209,332. No return of their value can yet be 

 obtained, but taking the average value of 1864 head slaughtered in 

 the West Eiding of Yorkshire, and applying that average to the whole 

 number, we obtain a total of 2,690,000Z. This, however, does not 

 represent the whole of our loss, as a considerable number died before 

 the passing of the Cattle Diseases Prevention Act, whose deaths were 

 not reported to the inspectors. Heavy losses were also incmi-ed by 

 the forced sales and premature slaughter of yoimg animals in store 

 condition, in consequence of the panic caused whenever the disease 

 made its first appearance in a new neighbom-hood. On the whole I 

 cannot rate the national loss caused by the cattle-plague at less than 

 three millions sterling. It is mortifying to reflect that (humanly 

 speaking) this great loss might have been in great measm-e prevented 

 if we had not been too proud to profit by the experience of our own 

 and other nations who had frequently had to battle with this terrible 

 scourge, and who had uniformly come to the conclusion, after repeated 

 attempts at cure, that immediate isolation and slaughter of all animals 

 attacked by rinderpest was the only mode of escaping heavy loss. No 

 doubt some will be found to dissent from my conviction, that this 

 great loss might have been almost entirely prevented if om- existing 

 machinery for stamping out cattle-plague had been set to work on its 

 first outbreak. It will be difficult, however, to escape from this con- 

 clusion if we compare the results of the " laissez-aller " and the 

 "stamping-out" methods in the summers of 1865 and 1866. Com- 

 pare, for instance, the month of July, 1865, with the month of Sep- 

 tember, 1866. In the former month there were 79 fresh outbreaks of 

 the disease ; in the latter there were 74. So that the number of new 

 centres of infection created were in each of these months nearly the 

 same. In the latter case, however, the stamping-out principle was 

 applied to these new sources of infection, in the other they were left 

 to increase and multiply. And what was the consequence ? Two 

 months later the full efiect of these new outbreaks would be fully 

 seen ; and we find in September, 1865, 954 fresh outbreaks, attacking 

 5200 animals; whilst in November, 1866, there were only 8 fresh 

 outbreaks, attacking 16 animals. Why should not the 74 fresh out- 

 breaks in September, 1866, have done as much mischief proportion- 

 ately as the 79 in July, 1865 ? Some will say that the disease was 



