THE LUNG PLAGUE OF CATTLE. 55 



fully, and others in the rudest possible manner by unlettered persons, 

 and even with lymph. which has been allowed to pass into putrefaction, 

 so that the resulting wounds were septic sores and the constitutional 

 disturbance a more or less fatal septicaemia. The results have in no 

 way negatived \Yillems' claim that properly performed, the inoculation 

 of a susceptible animal with the lung-plague lymph, fortifies the system 

 of that animal with a reasonable amount of certainty against any sub- 

 sequent attack of the disease.* 



The most recent evidence furnished by Dr. Willems himself of the 

 effect of reinoculation of previously inoculated animals may be here 

 quoted. 



Since I have had the pleasure of receiving your last letter [he writes Bouley], I 

 liavt- reiuoculated sixteen subjects with the pulmonary virus. The virulent insertion 

 has been made behind the ears, in the neck, and in the dewlap regions which you 

 say. with just reason are forbidden under pain of death. These reinoculatins have 

 IK in executed in the stables of four distillers of the town, upon beasts previously 

 inoculated on the tail with such apparent success that they had all lost a larger or 

 smaller portion of this appendage. 



The results of these reinoculations made the 24th March, the 9th and 17th April, have 

 been the following: Upon fourteen subjects no manifestation, even local, of the swell- 

 ing consecutive to the virulent insertion, though I had employed considerable doses 

 of the liquid to inoculate. The wounds cicatrized as readily as simple wounds made 

 with a cutting instrument. Upon the two other subjects tumors have appeared in 

 the places of inoculation, as large as pigeons' eggs, behind the ears, and as large as a 

 hazel nut in the region of the neck in one subject, while in the other there was a hard 

 8\\ filing measuring 10 centimeters long by 7 or S broad in the region of the dewlap 

 where the virulent insertion had been made. Upon one of the beasts the tumor of 

 the ear transformed itself into an abscess; the other engorgements disappeared by reso- 

 lution. 



Thus far we fully indorse inoculation. It is unquestionably a most 

 valuable measure for the reduction of the losses from lung plague in a 

 country in which the plague itself has come to be considered as an un- 

 avoidable evil. But the advocates of the measure are not satisfied with 

 such claims, and demand that it shall be adopted as an efficient meas- 

 ure for the complete extermination of the plague. Now it might be sim- 

 ply stated that, though this measure has been in operation for over thirty 

 years, it has not up till now succeeded in exterminating lung plague 

 from any country whatever. 



Eighteen months ago it was claimed that inoculation had rooted out 

 the lung plague from Holland. Yet in Holland repressive measures 

 were not confined to inoculation, but inoculation was only an addendum 

 to a general compulsory slaughtering of the sick and disinfecting of the 

 premises measures whicty, rigidly enforced, would of themselves stamp 

 out the disease. In the second place, the claim that Holland had been 

 purged of the plague proved premature, and in the past year the affec- 

 tion has been again reported from five provinces, extending from Fries- 

 land to South Flanders, or over a belt embracing the entire length of the 

 country. 



Next it is claimed that inoculation completely eliminated the disease 

 from the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. Now the condition of the Edin- 

 burgh dairies is so peculiar that no deduction drawn from the results 

 obtained could be safely applied over an entire country. From a long 

 and sad experience with lung plague, Edinburgh dairyman have been 

 driven to a very peculiar system of management. They no longer dare 

 introduce into their cow-houses any but animals in prime condition, 

 which can be turned over to the butcher without material loss at a day's 

 notice. A very large proportion of these cows, in the past, have been 

 made into beef within three months of their arrival in the city dairies. 



