54 DBPAETMENT OF AGEICULTUEB. 



per cent., lost a part of the tail ; seventeen, or 1.39 per cent., died ; lastly, twenty-nine 

 animals, or 2.38 per cent., were seized with pleuropneumonia, and of these eight succumbed. 

 Twenty-nine head of cattle were inoculated with decomposing matter, and only two with 

 out local effect resulting. Ten lost a portion of the tail, viz., 34 per cent. Of these ani 

 mals three caught pleuropneumonia, and one of these died. The Lille committee regarded 

 the process and results of inoculation as involved in doubts and uncertainties. 



In England attention was directed to inoculation by consuls from abroad, and Pro 

 fessors Simonds and Morton were commissioned to proceed to Belgium to investigate the 

 matter, and then to institute experiments at home. The result obtained, after much too 

 limited observation, was pronounced against the practice. This sufficed to prevent the 

 continuance of the operation among veterinarians, and the London cow-feeders alone 

 resorted to the plan in a partial and very imperfect manner. 



I witnessed many bad results in 1854 and 1855, and a case which came under my 

 observation on the 4th of May, 1856, in which putrid matter that had been kept in an ink- 

 bottle for a long time was used, led me to pronounce a somewhat cautious but adverse 

 opinion in the Highland Society s transactions for that year. 



My efforts were afterward directed to an exposure of the evils of indiscriminate sale 

 of healthy and sick cattle in public markets, and I insisted on the slaughter and isolation of 

 sick and infected animals. The little support I received at home led me, in 1863, to call 

 together the first international veterinary congress, which was held in Hamburg, and there I 

 met veterinarians from all parts of Europe who had steadily persevered in the practice of 

 inoculation, and could furnish me with reliable data. It is impossible, and, indeed, it would 

 be superfluous, to give a detailed account of the thousands and tens of thousands of 

 cases which have led to the almost universal opinion that inoculation is the best means in 

 the majority of instances to check the ravages of pleuropneumonia. The observations 

 have been made in all countries where pleuropneumonia has appeared, though opposition 

 to the practice is scarcely overcome to the extent that is desirable. 



The efforts of Professor Verheyen in Belgium, and his many attacks on Dr. Willems s 

 method, approved as they have been by some in that country, only illustrate once more 

 the adage that a man is not a prophet in his own country. But Professor Thiervene, who 

 was one of the original Belgian commissioners, and at first among the decided skeptics, 

 delivered an address before the Royal Academy of Medicine in Brussels, in 1866, in reply 

 to one by M. Boens, who had attacked the practice of inoculation, in which he vindicates 

 Dr. Willems s position. He indorses Professor Saint Cyr s remarks on the demonstration 

 of a preservative influence by the most accurate and extensive experiments, and shows 

 that of the well-informed in Belgium, who are acquainted with the character of the con 

 tagious pleuropneumonia, none now doubt that inoculation is a safe and certain pre 

 ventive. 



Medical men, no less than veterinarians, have a duty to perform in relation to this 

 subject. Boards of health in cities and country districts should take up the subject in con 

 nection with the sale of the meat and milk of animals affected with pleuropneumonia. His 

 tory shows that in those countries, such as England, where the sale of the produce of these 

 animals has been most unrestricted, the traffic in such cattle has been so great as to cause 

 the most severe losses by the disease, and without intermission. 



An objection to inoculation, which weighs in the case of human and ovine small-pox 

 aS well as rinderpest, is that the inoculated disease is contagious, that the cohabitation of 



