124 JSMAI-L-J'OX IN SHEKP 



In a report read before the French Academy of 

 Sciences, by IVI. Serres, and published in Stcinbrenner's 

 Traits sur la Vaccine, the following remarks occur : — 

 " It is well known that acfriculturists have recourse to 

 inoculation to stay the progress of the clavelee ; and in 

 those districts where sheep are reared, the lambs are 

 yearly inoculated, the virus being selected from an 

 animal which is but slightly affected. If, however, the 

 ichor is transmitted through the systems of several 

 sheep, we ohta'ui by the tenth remove afiidd which rarely 

 liroduces a general eruption, so that the malady in- 

 duced by inoculation is very mild and unattended with 

 danger *." 



The declarations of M. Lebel are even more to the 

 pui'}:)ose. We quote from an article translated from 

 Le Recueil de Medicine Vdtdrinaire, and published in 

 Tlie Veterinarian, in which the writer, after gi\ing the 

 details of an unusual fatality arising fi*om inoculation, 

 adds, that 



" There needs no further proof of the contagious property of matter 

 of sheep-pox, be it the product of malignant or benign pox ; but it 

 becomes a question, whether or not this property, especially in the 

 latter, does not become weakened under successive inoculations, 

 Hurtrel d'Arboval is of opinion that it becomes so after the fifth time 

 of inoculation. ' For my own part, however,' says M. Lebel, ' I 

 would say rather \he fifteenth time.' 



" In May 184G, M. Lebel inoculated fifty lambs, the produce of 

 the year. The beginning of June — every thing having proceeded 

 favourably up to that time — sixty-eight newly-purchased sheep, of 

 ages from one to three years, were turned to run with the flock that 

 the fifty lambs had rejoined. From twenty to twenty-five days after- 

 wards — from thirty-six to forty days since the inoculation of the lambs 



* Page 529. 



