60 DEPAKTMENT OF AGRICULTTTRE. 



But Professor Verlieyen, who was the president of this coininission, 

 contiimed until his death to throw discredit on the preservative efficacy 

 of inoculation, and though he based most of his conclusions on hypo- 

 theses, he was ready to avail himself of everything that presented itself 

 to strengthen his position. 



Three commissions were almost simultaneously at work to ascertain 

 the merits of Dr. Willems's discovery. 



The first in Holland, appointed on the 17th of April, 1852, consisted 

 of the director and professors of the veterinary school at Utrecht.* 



From the 11th of June, 1852, to the 9th of July following, the com- 

 mission inoculated for fourteen proprietors two hundred and forty-seven 

 head of cattle of various ages and condition. In this number there were 

 one hundred and fifty-four milch cows, six young cows that had not yet 

 calved, thirty-two heifers, and fifty-five calves. The phenomena of the 

 operation were not manifested at once on all the beasts that were subjected 

 to it. The proportions between the inoculation and its consequences are 

 nearly constant in milch cows and heifers; they are found to be about 

 as three to two. In calves, on the contrary, the proportion is less; it is 

 a s four and a quarter to one. A great difference was observed in the effects 

 on cattle of different proprietors. Thus, out of thirteen milch cows 

 belonging to Degroot, four only experienced the consequences, while 

 with the cattle belonging to Wynen, it was successful in eighteen out of 

 twenty; and yet the matter used for the inoculation at these two farms 

 came from the same lung. Other similar variations were observed, 

 and were not attributed exclusively by the commission to a greater or 

 less predisposition to pleuropneumonia. The}' thought it more proba- 

 ble explanation of the fact that the disease, raging with greater vio- 

 lence and upon a greater number of beasts in one stable than another, 

 existed in germ at the time of inoculation, although there were no symp- 

 toms to indicate it. Thence it was, then, that with one exception 

 pleuro-pneumonia caused the greatest losses to the i^roprietors on whose 

 cattle the inoculation took least. The inoculated beasts that the com- 

 mission had to report on as having been attacked by pleuro-pnounuinia, 

 were sixteen in imniber. Although this figure, they say, is pretty con- 

 siderable, it proves in no wise to the disadvantage of the preservative 

 power of the inoculation ; for it was to be expected that cases of i)leuro- 

 pneumonia, more or less numerous, would in-esent themselves among 

 the cattle subjected to the operation, since they had been stabled with 

 infected animals, and at the time of performing it there were still several 

 affected with the disease. " We cannot omit to state," adds the re])orter, 

 "that u])()n none of these animals Avas the inoculation succeeded by local 

 l)hen()mena;" The opinion of those who thought that pleuro-pneumonia 

 acquires by inoculation a milder character, and terminates more favor- 

 ably, was not confirmed; the greater number of the animals attacked 



** Further paporsrc8ppctin<!; pleino-piicuiiioiiia in cattle, presented to the Britisli House 

 of Comiuous by commauil of her Majesty, December G, 1652. 



