Variola ; Sheep pox. 357 



Gamgee, was completely stamped out in four weeks on this plan, 

 whereas the invasion of 1847, met by the expedients of inocula- 

 tion and quarantine, lasted for four }^ears, with great losses in a 

 number of flocks, and a very heavy bill for continued expert 

 supervision. This should be a wholesome lesson to the American 

 legislators who consider the prompt extinction of infection, by 

 abolishing this source of its increase in the living body, as a 

 wasteful outlay. 



Preventive Inoculation, Ovination. If it were possible to give 

 immunity against sheeppox by inoculation with the exudate of 

 cowpox, and without danger to the sheep from fatal cowpox, or 

 from its transformation into the more destructive sheeppox, it 

 would be a most desirable resource. But experiment goes to 

 show that vaccination is useless, in the temperate climates at 

 least. Sacco, Hussan, Buniva and others in Italy vaccinated 

 sheep extensively and claimed to have obtained good results, but 

 this has not been endorsed by subsequent observers. D'Arboval 

 vaccinated 1,523 sheep, of which 1,341 contracted cowpox, and 

 out of 429 of these exposed to sheeppox later, 308 contracted the 

 latter disease. Ceely vaccinated two sheep, both of which after- 

 ward had mild sheeppox through inoculation. Simonds and 

 Marson vaccinated 306 sheep, 112 of them successfully, and of 

 these last two-thirds contracted cowpox a second time on re-vac- 

 cination. Twenty-nine of the successfully vaccinated sheep were 

 inoculated with sheeppox lymph, and in every case successfully. 

 It is obvious that vaccination, as a protective measure, is abso- 

 lutely untrustworthy in France or in England. Under the warm 

 skies of Italy, as in Persia, there may be a close relationship be- 

 tween the two diseases, yet in Italy sheeppox was constantly 

 prevalent, and it is to be feared that the immunity in a number 

 of cases was due to a previous attack of that disease rather than 

 to the vaccination. It should be noted that in Persia sheeppox is 

 said to be communicable to man, while in England, Ceely failed 

 to transmit it. 



Ceely suggested variolisation with human smallpox as a pre- 

 ventive of sheeppox, but Simonds and Marson failed to convey 

 smallpox to the sheep, though the same animal readily contracted 

 sheeppox. One can hardly contemplate Ceely 's proposal with 

 equanimity. Immunity for sheep would be dearly bought at the 

 cost of a general diffusion of smallpox virus. 



