174 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 



the tail is selected in preference to any other part, because it can 

 be easily amputated if gangrene occur. 



In the most favourable instances, a slight heat and swelling 

 occurs round the inoculated spot in a period varying from a week 

 to two months ; generally, however, the eruption manifests itself 

 from the ninth to the sixteenth day, accompanied by slight rigors, 

 loss of appetite, and slightly diminished secretion of milk. When 

 the operation has been properly performed, and the virus care- 

 fully selected, the effects are generally as above described ; but 

 when the virus is putrid or badly selected, or, as sometimes 

 happens, some peculiarity exists in the inoculated animal, the 

 primary swelling is excessive, the tip of the tail becomes gan- 

 grenous, the animal suffers from a high state of fever ; secondary 

 deposits occur at the root of the tail, around the anus, and in 

 the abdominal glands, and death occurs in a few days after the 

 inoculation. 



The conclusions arrived at by the Belgian Commission with 

 regard to inoculation are as follows : — 



" 1. The inoculation of the liquid extracted from the lungs 

 of an animal affected with pleuro-pneumonia does not transmit 

 to healthy animals of the same species the same disease — at all 

 events so far as its seat is concerned. 



" 2. The appreciable phenomena which follow the inoculation 

 are those of local inflammation, which is circumscribed and slight 

 on a certain number of the animals inoculated ; extensive and 

 diffuse, with general reaction proportioned to the local disease, 

 and complicated by gangrenous accidents, on another number 

 of the inoculated animals, so that even death may result. 



" 3. The inoculation of the liquid from the lungs of an animal 

 affected with pleuro-pneumonia exerts a preservative influence, 

 and invests the economy of the larger number of animals sub- 

 jected to its influence with an immunity which protects them 

 from the contagion of this malady during a period which has yet 

 to be determined." — (Gamgee.) 



The losses sustained during the experiments of the Commis- 

 sion amounted to ll'll per cent.; the number of animals on 

 which the operation was benignant was 61'11 per cent; the pro- 

 portion in which there was gangrene and loss of a portion of the 

 tail was 27'77 per cent. ; in twenty-one subjects the inflammation 



