The Cattle- Plague. 275 



act upon the blood. The best of these perhaps were forms of sulphur 

 — sulphites of potash and soda, and hypo-sulphite of soda. These 

 latter had been tried in Kent and Sui-rey, and also in the Eoyal 

 Veterinary College, without any beneficial results. He must admit, 

 therefore, that all our means employed as medicinal agents had failed 

 to give protection to animals against this malady. 



It is almost useless to go into the question whether security could 

 be given by vaccination ; it has already been tested and found to fail ; 

 even if the disease had been of a variolous natiu-e, it would not neces- 

 sarily follow that vaccination would give security. There was a 

 parallel instance in the small-pox in sheep ; a disease so destructive 

 that it might be considered to be as fruitful of infection as the 

 cattle-plague among cattle, except that the infection did not extend 

 so rapidly. Vaccination gave no security to sheep against this 

 infection ; nay, it could hardly be said that sheep were susceptible 

 to the true vaccine disease. In making this remark, his object 

 was to show that if we had a true variolous disease, it would not 

 follow that we must be protected by vaccination itself. 



With reference to disinfectants, a certain amount of advantage 

 might arise from theii- use when the cattle-plague was in the neigh- 

 bom-hood. At the same time we must ask ourselves what we were 

 really disinfecting. If we were guarding in certain ways against the 

 introduction of noxious matter existing near at hand, and if we had 

 a disinfectant lying outside the door where the animals were kept, so 

 that every person who trod there might have his shoes brought into 

 contact with it from day to day, we might then see a certain advan- 

 tage to be derived from it. But to hope that any great advantage 

 would arise from the use of disenfectants in sheds where there was 

 no disease would be unreasonable. No doubt disinfectants were valu- 

 able in preventing the propagation of the disease when it had established 

 itself on a farm ; and he believed that in many cases the ravages by 

 the disease in this country had resulted either from the non-disinfecting 

 of infected premises or else from disinfectants having been not pro- 

 perly employed. The most extraordinary things that could possibly 

 be conceived had been resorted to under the idea that they would 

 disinfect the premises, and used in such a manner that they might as 

 well have been dispensed with altogether. But on this question of 

 disinfectants we were lamentably behind ; and, unless something was 

 done to secure thorough disinfection, he anticipated that there would 

 be fresh outbreaks hereafter in different parts of the coimtry, owing 

 to the manm-e and refuse matter which had come in contact with the 

 animals not having been disinfected. He could not, therefore, too 

 strongly impress upon gentlemen the necessity of paying strict atten- 

 tion to this subject of disinfection. 



Means of Cure. 



We had already observed that various medicinal agents had proved 



failures. Every means yet tried had failed to cure the disease, and 



we might have expected that such would be the case whsn we looked at 



the nature of the malady, and what had been the experience of Conti- 



T 2 



