240 SMALL-POX IN SHEEP. 



is not seen where causes combine to weaken the system and 

 favour the repeated approach of contagious matter. 



In Prance the mortality observed amongst flocks affected 

 with this disease varies from 20 to 40 per cent. In England 

 it has attained 50 per cent. 



Every writer of merit in Europe attributes this disease to 

 the introduction of diseased animals across the Russian 

 frontier into Poland, Hungary, Prussia, Pomerania, &c. This 

 malady, like pleuro-pneumonia in cattle, epizootic aphtha, 

 and contagious typhus, spreads invariably from east to west. 

 It is a malady which never has, and never will, originate 

 spontaneously in this country. 



It is perpetuated in some countries, such as Prussia, and 

 especially in its eastern divisions, by the practice of the yearly 

 inoculation of lambs born on farms frequently visited by the 

 disorder. 



Mr Mayer, writing in 1848, said, with regard to inocula- 

 tion for small-pox in sheep, " I should myself question its 

 policy, as it tends to perpetuate a disease in the country 

 which, by sanitary regulations on the part of the Government, 

 and the active co-operation of local authorities and agri- 

 culturists, might be arrested in its course and thus die out." 

 I shall consider the subject of inoculation further on, but 

 cannot refrain from quoting Mr Mayer's words, which are 

 pregnant with truth. Europe has lost hundreds of thousands 

 of sheep, and has suffered from repeated outbreaks, entirely 

 from the absurd practice of inoculation. It is the most 

 active cause tending to propagate the disorder with rapidity 

 over the greater part of the continent of Europe. Thus, if a 

 flock of infected sheep communicates the disease to one or 

 two districts in Mecklenburgh, the appearance of the disorder 

 is notified to the magistrate, and the districts are proscribed. 

 This is the signal of alarm which leads forthwith to the 



