90 Foot-and-Mouth Disease. 



there is no panacea yet discovered, and that after determination 

 of the nature of the contamination it is desired to eliminate, 

 such treatment should be adopted as is specially appropriate 

 and applicable. Each form of contamination must be treated 

 on its merits, and success of treatment will largely depend on 

 the information possessed as to the history and habits of, and 

 the circumstances affecting, the several organisms which 

 constitute the contamination and are respectively responsible 

 for the occurrence of various forms of disease in grazing 

 animals. Regretable incompleteness of our knowledge of the 

 conditions affecting the life and development of some of the 

 more dangerous organisms which pollute our pastures stands 

 in the way of the application of precise measures for their 

 destruction, while it is realised that some of the circumstances 

 under which contamination may occur are beyond our control. 



John Penberthy. 



Dean Hall, 



Newnham, Glos. 



FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE. 



History of the Disease in Great Britain. — Although 

 there is good reason to believe that foot-and-mouth disease 

 was unknown in this country before the last century, 

 it probably has existed fi-om time immemorial in Asia, 

 and it appears to have prevailed at intervals in the epizootic 

 form in Eastern Europe before its introduction into Great 

 Britain. Thus, in the sixteenth century it was described by 

 Italian writers, and in 1686 and 1687 it spread over Germany 

 and France. In the following century it had a wide distri- 

 bution over the Continent of Europe, and numerous outbreaks 

 of it are recorded. In the early part of the last century it was 

 equally prevalent in Eastern and Middle Europe, but it was 

 not until 1839 that the disease obtained a footing in Great 

 Britain. The precise circumstai:ices of its introduction here 

 are not known, but during that year it speedily acquired 

 epizootic dimensions among British cattle. The earliest 

 reference to it in veterinary literature is found in the 

 Veterinarian for 1839, where, under the heading " The present 

 Epidemic among Cattle," Mr. Hill, a veterinary surgeon of 

 Islington Green, described an outbreak in a dairy of 700 cows. 

 Six of the cows were suddenly attacked " with a singular 

 disease, the symptoms of which were precisely the same in 

 each. The lining membrane of the whole of the mouth was in 

 a state of inflammation and vesication. The tongue was 



