256 THE HISTORY OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 



entering. The police have often confined this disease of cattle to a 

 stable, or a small number of stables, and so prevented others being 

 attacked. 



" It follows from all this that, on the one side, the disease arises 

 fro?n infection, and, on the other, that there are no hopes of a cure. 

 There only remain, then, those resources which we may employ to 

 prevent infection, and for confining to the smallest possible limit 

 the loss which might happen when animals are first attacked by this 

 poison. These efforts should be directed to prevent the infection 

 being communicated from foreign countries to ours ; or, if it should 

 have penetrated, then to stop its extension from diseased to healthy 

 cattle. Above all, then, we should hinder the entrance of cattle 

 from a country where the pneumonia nearly always reigns, some- 

 times in one district, sometimes in another, and these precautions 

 ought to remain in force at all times, and be perpetual in regard to 

 those countries where the police is not strict, and from which the 

 disease might be carried to ours. The danger will always be great 

 if the trade in cattle is carried on without inspection. This precau- 

 tion is all the more necessary against the countries whose rulers 

 care little for the welfare of the people, and in which the people 

 have no confidence in the administration. The poor people of a 

 country, despairing of being aided by the Government, conceal with 

 extreme care the existence of the contagion ; to evade more onerous 

 consequences, they even inter their cattle in the stables ; and it 

 is very natural that they should endeavor to sell at modest prices 

 beasts the keeping of which would only cause the extension of the 

 disease among- other cattle. In the countries where the ruler has 

 a paternal feeling for his subjects, where he is always disposed to 

 soften their losses, where he generously takes into account the ex- 

 penses necessarily attending precautions, and where he gains the 

 confidence of the people, the inhabitants at once denounce the 

 disease, submit to the necessary restrictions, and rely on the wis- 

 dom of their king for their preservation and the amelioration of 

 their hardships. A wise government ought to prevent the contagion, 

 and not wait until it has invaded the country, but check it at 

 its frontiers, where it is easy to do so. The police ought, then, 

 even in times of the greatest security, to take care that no animal 

 shall become diseased without responsible people being informed. 

 Even in ordinary times every animal purchased or sold ought to be 

 vouched for, and should be marked on the horn with a particular 

 stamp for each village, which mark should be renewed whenever it 

 becomes effaced ; so that by this proof we may know what village 



