2G2 The Cattle- Plague. 



various degrees I think nearly all tlie remedies named have tended 

 to reduce the death-rate ; and as the majority of them point to 

 the sustentation of the powers of the animal while it fights its 

 own battle with the virus, which is left to take its own course, 

 it is probable that future attempts will follow in this direction. 

 Many of the above agents are truly prophylactic (protective), 

 and perhaps should have been placed in that category. 



Preventive Treatment. — A belief that the curative treatment 

 of the disease, before the results of its development have ex- 

 tended to every organ and function of the frame, may be 

 attempted Avith a rational hope of success, is not incompatible 

 with a higher dependence on " prevention," which " is better 

 than cure." For the pathological and rational method of inves- 

 tigation does not deal unintelligently with the results of the 

 cattle-plague, but begins at the other end, and by tracing it to 

 its source, prevents its propagation, and conserves the animal. 

 Had the physicians of a past age been encouraged to consign 

 their plague-stricken patients to the slayer, we should still look 

 askance at consignments of cotton from Egypt, where the plague- 

 seeds are as numerous as ever. But having placed ourselves 

 in unison Avith laws formerly violated, the thought of this terrible 

 scourge ceases to trouble us. We have rendered ourselves 

 incombustible : will not the application of similar means confer 

 incombustibility on our cattle ? Perhaps not incombustibility, 

 but such resistive power as shall effect a reduction in our losses, 

 render treatment more politic than slaughter, and afford us a safe 

 and feasible expedient in assurance. 



Last summer a proposition was made by the French Govern- 

 ment for convening the representatives of European Governments 

 at Constantinople to consider the best means of limiting cholera 

 to the land whence it is supposed to issue, and to employ active 

 measures to extinguish it. If this can be done in the case of 

 cholera, it surely can in the case of rinderpest. For if the 

 theory of certain writers be true, that Steppe cattle is the only 

 race able to generate plague-virus, we have but to exterminate 

 that race. For that purpose we would readily sacrifice a 

 few millions of money to secure the noble and laboriously 

 reared herds of Great Britain from such calamities as the 

 present. 



The immunity, partial or complete, obtained for human 

 sufferers from small-pox by inoculation and vaccination naturally 

 suggested experiments to be made in that direction. Pleuro- 

 pneumonia, which not only carries off great quantities of cattle, 

 but predisposes all cattle attacked with it to other diseases, 

 certainly receives a check from inoculation. When that com- 

 plaint was rife in Holland, Dr. WiLLEMS, of Hasselt, devoted 



