48 DEPARTMENT OF AGKICULTURE. 



Three commissions were almost simultaneously at work to ascertain the merits of 

 Dr. Willems s discovery. 



The first in Holland, appointed on the 17th of April, 1852, consisted of the director 

 and professors of the veterinary school at Utrecht.* 



From the 14th of June, 1852, to the 9th of July following, the commission inoculated 

 for fourteen proprietors two hundred and forty-seven head of cattle of various ages and 

 condition. In this number there were one hundred and fifty-four milch cows, six young 

 cows that had not yet calved, thirty-two heifers, and fifty-five calves. The phenomena of 

 the operation were not manifested at once on all the beasts that were subjected to it. 

 The proportions between the inoculation and its consequences are nearly constant in milch 

 cows and heifers; they are found to be about as three to two. In calves, on the contrary, 

 the proportion is less ; it is as four and a quarter to one. A great difference was observed 

 in the effects on cattle of different proprietors. Thus, out of thirteen milch cows belonging 

 to Degroot, four only experienced the consequences, while with the cattle belonging to 

 Wynen it was successful in eighteen out of twenty; and yet the matter used for the 

 inoculation at these two farms came from the same lung. Other similar variations were 

 observed, and were not attributed exclusively by the commission to a greater or less 

 predisposition to pleuropneumonia. They thought it a more probable explanation of the 

 fact that the disease, raging with greater violence and upon a greater number of beasts in 

 one stable than another, existed in germ at the time of inoculation, although there were 

 no symptoms to indicate it. Thence it was, then, that with one exception pleuropneu 

 monia caused the greatest losses to the proprietors on whose cattle the inoculation took 

 least. The inoculated beasts that the commission had to report on as having been attacked 

 by pleuropneumonia were sixteen in number. Although this figure, they say, is pretty 

 considerable, it proves in no wise to the disadvantage of the preservative power of the 

 inoculation; for it was to be expected that cases of pleuropneumonia, more or less numerous, 

 would present themselves among the cattle subjected to the operation, since they had been 

 stabled with infected animals, and at the time of performing it there were still several 

 affected with the disease. &quot;We cannot omit to state,&quot; adds the reporter, &quot;that upon 

 none of these animals was the inoculation succeeded by local phenomena.&quot; The opinion 

 of those who thought that pleuropneumonia acquires by inoculation a milder character, 

 and terminates more favorably, was not confirmed; the greater number of the animals 

 attacked perished. The operation had not the least influence upon the beasts which, at 

 the time it was performed, were evidently affected with pleuropneumonia. Several beasts 

 that were known for some time to have been affected with pleuropneumonia experienced 

 not the least effect from the inoculation. 



The report from which the foregoing has been extracted bears the date of the 21st 

 of September, 1852, and the results are indicated by the annexed table. 



The second report, bearing date of the 28th of December, 1852, and prepared by the 

 same commission, furnishes facts recorded in the subjoined table. 



The conclusions drawn from the experiments were summarized as follows : 



1. Although the inoculation of pleuropneumonia is not, in all respects, an inoffensive 

 operation as extensive derangements and even death may result from it its effects are 

 generally confined to the part where it has been applied. 



* Further papers respecting plouropueumouia in cattle, presented to the British House of Commons by command 

 of her Majesty, December 6, 1852. 



