258 THE HISTORY OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 



and which might be infected by its breath, though it may be given 

 to horses. Every animal dying of the disease should be opened in 

 the presence of proper persons skilled in the veterinary art, and a 

 report of the post-mortem appearance should be made. If the dis- 

 ease is made out to be a non-contagious one, the owner may be per- 

 mitted to use the flesh and remove the skin. But if there is found 

 the slightest cause for suspicion in the lungs, the skin ought to be 

 cut crosswise, and buried in a grave six feet deep, which should be 

 filled with lime. Palisades should be fixed around it, so that no 

 animal may come near it. If the disease is really a pneumonia, it is 

 preferable not to doctor it, but to kill without delay the first ani- 

 mals which, from their cough, would lead one to suspect the dis- 

 ease, or those which have been in the same stable with the sick ; 

 because we may set down as lost, without exception, every animal 

 which has been in a house with a pulmonic beast. Experience has 

 only too often demonstrated that they take the disease one after the 

 other, and all die. 



" 10. When many stables are infected in the same village, the 

 danger is yet greater, and it is here that it is necessary to redouble 

 our efforts to prevent the extension of the contagion. All the in- 

 fected stables should be carefully closed and excluded from all 

 communication with the watering-places and pasturage ; in seri- 

 ous cases, to make more certain, we should kill all animals which 

 have been in the infected places, no less those in apparent health 

 than those in which the disease is manifest. We are driven to 

 this severe course because we can never be assured that those ani- 

 mals which have come out of the suspicious places have escaped the 

 contagion. This apparent cruelty is the only means to be employed 

 for preventing the contagion from penetrating into other stables and 

 into neighboring villages, and from spreading over the whole country. 



" The case is yet more dangerous when the contagion manifests 

 itself on a mountain where a certain number of cattle find their 

 subsistence during the winter. It has happened that the cattle of 

 the plains have remained in health, but those on the neighboring 

 mountains have been infected, and thus the herds of the republic 

 have been encircled by contagion. In these unhappy circumstances 

 it should be recommended that the mountain-passes be closed, and 

 all communication cut off from the infected pasturage. Inspectors 

 ought to make a visit every fifteen days to the mountains, where 

 cattle belonging to the subjects of the state are kept, in order to 

 examine with great care if any beasts are in a suspicious condition, 

 or if, without exception, they are healthy. 



