THE QUARTERLY 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
JULY, 1866. 
I. THE MORTALITY OF LIVERPOOL, AND ITS 
NATIONAL DANGER. 
In the course of the last year this country has been visited by a 
cattle murrain, the history of which may be summed up in a few 
words. It came, we know not whence, although we are aware that 
such a plague exists in certain continental countries; it raged, and 
we know not what kind of disease it is, by what laws it is governed, 
or why it appeared in certain places, disappeared, and sometimes 
appeared again. We know that in some districts it was the 
most virulent where there was a want of cleanliness in the stalls, 
whilst many well-regulated farms escaped its ravages, and that is 
about all that science has reaped from the visitation. Livery pre- 
caution was taken by the State to prevent its spread, and chiefiy 
should those efforts have been successful in excluding it from 
Treland; yet it appeared at length in that country also. The 
Clergy prayed for its removal, the nation (at least by deputy, 
through the State) humiliated itself for its sins, and probably in 
the due course of conventionality, the people will in a similar 
manner set apart a day for thanksgiving, when it has pleased 
Providence to allow this visitation entirely to pass away. 
Whether the same invasion (if it be an invasion), the same 
destruction of live-stock, the same perplexity and the same religious 
processes will be repeated in another decade or so, remains to be 
seen, and will depend greatly upon the amount of improvement 
which takes place in the method of conducting farms, and the 
degree of application brought to bear upon the scientific question 
by veterinary surgeons, chemists, and physiologists. In the case of 
the cattle-murrain, the panic and helplessness of the nation has been 
to some extent justifiable, for our Statesmen knew nothing of the 
approaching danger, nothing of its nature when it came, and their 
professional advisers were in the same boat with themselves. But 
m the case of the human plague raging in the country, and 
recently aggravated by importations from abroad, there is no such 
VOL. II. ¥ 
