OF THE OX. 227 



enabled the faculty to establish a medical 

 basis, which, if not infallible, would have been 

 relatively efficacious, and might have saved 

 a large number of the infected animals. 



"Whilst thus fixing their attention on the 

 cure of the sick animals, these experimentalists 

 would have carefully studied and practised the 

 preventive treatment by inoculation, availing 

 themselves both of Layard's hints and recom- 

 mendations and of the practical knowledge 

 acquired by the medical expedition to the 

 steppes, which would by that time have re- 

 turned from their mission. They would have 

 selected animals smitten with the genuine 

 typhus, of the typhoid and intestinal form, 

 in the third period, whilst the depurative 

 and critical secretions are running from 

 the mucous membranes ; they would have 

 gathered the virus from its springs of infec- 

 tion or from its purulent subcutaneous de- 

 posits or from the serum of the blood. 



On the other hand, they might have chosen 

 four heifers, of good constitutions and healthy, 

 and these they might have prepared, according 

 to Layard's advice, for inoculation, by a special 

 treatment, and by hygienic and medical cares. 

 Q 2 



