DISEASES AND REMEDIES. 497 



"'The passage of the Cattle Plague Act was, however, the 

 real cause of the diminution of the cases which have since taken 

 place, and which emboldens us to hope that ere long the dis- 

 ease will be entirely exterminated. For the first time in the 

 history of the visitation, the attacks were returned as under one 

 hundred for the week ending September 1st, ninety-nine being 

 the exact number reported by the inspectors.' 



"He quotes from the official returns the amount of loss which 

 England herself, apart from other parts of Great Britain, has 

 sustained : 



'"The total attacks are returned as 198,406. The animals 

 killed, (diseased,) amounted to 77,508; those which died, to 

 90,415; the recovered, to 21,589; and the unaccounted for, to 

 8,894. Besides which, no less than 38,356 have been slaugh- 

 tered healthy, to prevent the spread of the malady. These 

 figures are truly formidable; but they fail to show a tithe part 

 of the distress and ruin which has been brought on hundreds of 

 industrious iarmers and cattle owners by this dreadful visitation.' 



"In speaking of Scotland, he says: 



" 'It appears from the official returns, that the attacks in Scot- 

 land amount to 46,861, being 4.841 per cent, of the entire stock 

 of the country. 



"'In Ireland, but fifty cattle were exposed to the disease; 

 twenty -nine were attacked, and either died or were killed, and 

 twenty-one were slaughtered healthy. 



" 'Nothing can show more clearly the propriety of the stamp- 

 ing-out process than this result. In it we have a parallel with 

 what took place in France, where only forty-three animals, 

 healthy and diseased, were sacrificed to the pole-axe, the country 

 being thereby freed from the plague.' 



"The Cattle Plague Act, alluded to above, resembles the law 

 passed by the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the extra session, 

 in its general features; and the course adopted by the authori- 



