240 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



that they either constituted the virulent iniuciple or contained it. Yet 

 nuclei or granules increased to an extraordinary extent in parenchyma- 

 tous organs, the seat of simple inflammation. These, of course, cannot 

 1)6 considered as pathogenic. And yet there is no greater reason for 

 assuming a similarity of developmental power in these nuclear products 

 of a simple inflammation, and those of an influenza or rinderpest, than 

 for assuming equal powers of growth in the nuclei of different healthy 

 organs and structures. If nuclei, apparently indistinguishable from 

 each other in all respects except their position, never fail to build up tbe 

 substance of that particular tissue to which they belong, the nuclei of 

 bone invariably producing bone ; those of gristle, gristle ; those of fibrous 

 tissue, fibrous tissue ; those of muscle, muscle ; and those of nervous 

 matter, nervous matter; and if we can ingraft the nuclei of bone and 

 other tissues so as to build up such textures in unusual situations, is 

 there any insuperable objection to the conclusion that one class of such 

 morbid granules are harmless, while another class invariably develop in- 

 fluenza, and that alone ; a third class small-pox and that only ; a fourth 

 class glanders, and nothing else ; a fifth class, rinderpest only ; a sixth 

 class the contagious lung-plague of cattle, etc. The physiologist 

 has learned to realize that living particles, which are almost infinitesi- 

 mal in their minuteness, have characters as constant and a power of 

 development as certain and definite as the genera of animals from which 

 they were derived. There is no valid objection, therefore, to the theory 

 which recognizes in those products of a specific disease the virulent ele- 

 ments by which the affection is perpetuated and transmitted. And this 

 is the theory which appears at the jn-esent time to be most in accordance 

 with the history of influenza. 



In taking this position, it is sought to deny the conveyance of the 

 disease by atmospheric means. The numerous instances of horses hav- 

 ing been attacked in the open fields, apart from all roads, and from 

 other horses, and the rapid difl'asion of the disease over a city or dis- 

 trict, seem to implj'^ the intervention of atmospheric agency. But our 

 position by no means precludes such an agency. It only assumes that 

 there is a specific virulent element, which finds in the body of a suscep- 

 tible animal the material essential to its growth, its unlimited reproduc- 

 tion, and extensive diffusion. The air may still be invoked as an im- 

 portant -medium through which the dried and drying virus or hioiAasni 

 (Beale) may be caiTied to long tlistances, and infect new animals and 

 localities. It is further in keeping with the theory that the skin and 

 clothing of human beings, and solid objects of nearly every kind, may 

 become the medium through which the disease is conveyed from i^lace 

 to place, and will thus explain mauy outbreaks which would otherwise 

 appear to be spontaneous. 



This theory further explains the outbreak on islands near the shore 

 simultaneously with its appearance on the jnainland, and all well-au- 

 thenticated cases of the infection of the ships' crews at sea. Thus the 

 equine influenza is alleged to have appeared in Block Island, about ten 

 miles at sea, on the same day that it broke out on the Connecticut shore. 

 Were it proved (which, however, has not been attempted) that there 

 had been no recent communication between this island and the shore, 

 there would be nothing in the fact to overthrow the i^osition taken in 

 this paper. A similar case is that of the Stag frigate, recorded by Wat- 

 son. In 1833 this ship was coming up tbe English Channel, and wlsen 

 off Beechy Head, in Devonshire, the wind blev.' strongly from the shore 

 at 2 o'clock, at which time all the men were healthy, (and it is presumed, 

 but not affirmed, that there had been no communication with the shore;) 



