182 THE DISEASES AND DISORDERS OF THE OX. 



All sheds, cow-houses, crew-yards and, in short, any place 

 which has contained cattle diseased or supposed to have been 

 diseased, owing to their proximity to subjects of pleuro- 

 pneumonia, should be thoroughly cleansed and disinfected. 

 Sulphur should be burnt with due precautions in braziers in 

 different parts of the t premises. In order to obviate future 

 outbreaks as far as possible, every part should be thoroughly 

 steamed out with the fumes of burning sulphur, the gas which 

 is produced, sulphur dioxide, being perhaps the best and most 

 reliable of our disinfectants. After this has been done, the 

 walls, stalls, roofs, and every little nook and corner should be 

 thoroughly white-washed with lime-wash, with each bucketful of 

 which one pint at least of carbolic acid has been mixed. Prompt 

 investigation will then reveal if there are any other oxen affected 

 or likely to be affected. The temperature will serve as a guide in 

 this inquiry. Unfortunately there is some difference of opinion as 

 to the best measures to be adopted with those animals in which 

 the disease is suspected to be lurking. Some think that all 

 suspected oxen should be killed at once, without hesitation. If 

 not slaughtered, all that have been exposed to infection should 

 be strictly isolated. If the animals are "in condition" and 

 slaughtered thus summarily, before the disease has assumed any 

 degree of virulence, the flesh may be used as food. If, however, 

 the animal be for any reason greatly debilitated, or if the flesh 

 has an unhealthy appearance, the meat is not to be deemed fit 

 for human food, but should be buried with antiseptic precau- 

 tions. The hides, hoofs, &c. should be most scrupulously kept 

 from contact with other cattle. 



Dr. Williams held that though the actual disease is not pro- 

 duced by inoculation, immunity against future attacks is secured. 

 He thought that the blood and the serous liquid squeezed from 

 the lungs of an animal in the first stage of pleuro-pneumonia 

 are the most suitable material for inoculation, and found that 

 in from ten days to a month symptoms are produced. He 

 further advises that the inoculation should be performed with 

 great care, and that towards the tenth day a saline purge may 

 be given, and repeated if necessary. He tells us that the mor- 

 bid changes do not extend to the lungs, but are merely 

 localised in the part inoculated, and that the bovine race seems 

 to be alone affected. We now know that though he may have 



