262 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



We last year offered to visit, ou uotice by telegra])b, any sach cases of 

 common i)ueumouia, Avhicli an extensive practitioner tbere asserted lie 

 had frequently seen, bnt as yet have received no such notification. 



The coiita<iions cliaracter of plenro pneumonia in this country has 

 certainly not diminislied with the change of climate. Still there is some 

 reason to believe that our severer winters tend to freeze out the disease, 

 and, wlioi-e there has been a full exposure, give us a better hope of inter- 

 rupting its contagiousness; yet the contagion itself seems very persistent 

 unless thcje is subjection to freezing and to various methods of disin- 

 fection. It is well established that after an outbreak had ceased for a 

 year or more, the removal of the old barns and the exposure of the un- 

 frozen ground beneath at once revived the disease. A case not long 

 since occun ed on Long Island where the transfer to the new sheds and 

 the destructiouof the old, near by, seemed to originate or reproduce the 

 plague. Facts are accumulating to show that the accidental protection 

 from frost caused by shelter seems to continue some Of the coutagious 

 both of men and of animals. This is one of the contagions probably not 

 wafted far, but quite indestructible unless largely exposed to air, to 

 severe cold, and to disinfection. 



But the most imjiortant question of all pressing upon our attention 

 at the present time is whether we are to forsake the method of stamp- 

 ing out the disease by occision, and to substitute the system of iuocu- 

 lation as first i)racticed in Belgium and Hollaud, and as revived in Scot- 

 land under the auspices of Rutherford and Williams, and as sanctioned 

 also by Fleming and others. This is the more important because, 

 under the advice and approval of the Drs. McLean, the board of health 

 of the city of Brooklyn has allowed or autliorized this system in its 

 stables, and at a point where the disease has long bad a foothold. At 

 one time Professor Law expressed the hope that the inoculatiou method, 

 under some modifications, would be revived. In New Jersey the State 

 law ijermits inoculation, under expert oversight, in a herd in which there 

 has been an outbreak, if such inoculation is ordered or approved by 

 the board of health. In the last instance the law was based ou the 

 views of Rutherford, AVilliams, &c., and ou the foct that the State 

 despaired of securing riddance of the disease, with reasonable expendi- 

 tuie, if it must be constantly subjected thereto by the trausportatiou 

 or driving of cattle from infected localities in other States. 



The details of inoculatiou as followed out in New Jersey are of nuich 

 interest. Through the influence and practice of Mr. Lamerz, a German 

 veterinarian of Newark, it has for several years been a custom with 

 dairymen in Essex County, and especially about Orange, to inoculate 

 their herds, not only when there was an outbreak among their cattle, 

 but as a customary precaution. It is worthy of note that all who have 

 pursued this plan express themselves fully satisfied therewith, and aver 

 that they have never known an\' case of the transmission of the conta- 

 gion by this means. While niucli of this is negative testimoay, aud 



