1866. | Agriculture. 249 
on February 17, 13,377 per cent. on February 24, and 13°956 per 
cent. on March 3. Since then the slaughter of all affected animals 
by law has, of course, hindered any further observation ; but the 
plague was apparently obeying the law of other extraordinary 
epidemics, and gradually losing with extension the extremely fatal 
type which it exhibited at first. The above are the results of com- 
paring, not one week with another, but the totals simce the com- 
mencement of the attack up to the end of each successive week. 
The advance is very much greater if the experience of each successive 
week be examined by itself. The recoveries, which were only 848, 
or 48 per cent., at a time when there had already been 17,673 
cases of the disease in the country, amounted to no fewer than 2,561, 
or 25 per cent., during a single week in February, when 10,167 
fresh cases occurred. We may, therefore, declare that, great as this 
burden on British agriculture undoubtedly is, some hopeful signs 
connected with it are at length appearing. 
It is, however, certain that they depend very much upon the great 
fear which the disease has created, and the extreme care now taken 
in isolating diseased herds. In a lecture by Professor Simonds, 
before the Royal Agricultural Society of England, the greatest 
emphasis was laid on the need of this carefulness, as the only hope 
of preventing the extension of the malady. Labourers, travellers, 
dogs, cats, pigeons, even the wind, when the disease is general over 
a considerable area, can carry the poison; and if a particle of the 
morbific matter gains a lodgment in the system of a healthy animal, 
it will develop there. Hence, wherever the disease exists, it is of 
the greatest importance that we detect it early, not merely because 
the only chance of successful treatment depends on commencing 
with it at the outset of the attack, but also because the establishment 
of a complete isolation of the animal, before it has begun to exhale 
the developed poison, is absolutely necessary. Professor Gamgee’s 
researches prove that the symptom which precedes all others is a 
slight exaltation of the temperature of the body. A thermometer 
inserted into the rectum or vagina indicates a temperature of from 
2° to 5° Fahr. above the normal 100° im a day or two after the 
inoculation of the animal with the poison, and some days before the 
characteristic outward symptoms show themselves. And _ the 
examination of whole herds has proved that the natural development 
of the disease is indicated in the same manner. The misfortune, how- 
ever, is, that this premonitory symptom is true of other diseases also, 
so that all that any stock-owner can declare with certainty, on finding 
that the internal temperature of his beast, ascertained in_ this way, 
stands at 103° to 105°, is that its health is disturbed. If he fears 
the cattle plague he may be disposed to believe that it has at length 
reached him; but of this he cannot be sure until the other more 
characteristic symptoms appear. Meanwhile the necessity a urgent 
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