44 THE NATURE AND TREATMENT OF 



value in mitigating the form and intensity of this dreadful 

 malady. Prof. Simmonds of the London Veterinary College, 

 who was commissioned, a short time ago, to visit the locations 

 of the ^^ rinderpests^ reports unfavorably on inoculation for 

 the same, but this will not affect the general issue, " time, 

 which proves all things," must elapse ere inoculation becomes 

 popular. Vaccination, when first practised by Jenner, met 

 with great opposition, in fact, for a long time it got the cold 

 shoulder of put>lic opinion, and a great number of professional 

 men who were directly interested in the success of so great a 

 boon to suffering humanity also opposed it. 



The want of success in a new experiment of this kind, is 

 probably in a majority of cases, owing to a lack of knowledge 

 on the part of experimenters, regarding the conditions neces- 

 sary to a successful issue. Inoculation has been tried in the 

 ^'-swill-milk" establishments in New York, the results have 

 proved unsatisfactory, and there are reasons for these failures, 

 which I shall briefly allude to. In the first place, the matter 

 used for innoculation was taken from the lungs of dead subjects 

 after having died the most horrid of all deaths, in an atmos- 

 phere and region too beastly to contemplate. Now it is well 

 known that absorption of morbid matter from a dead subject 

 is almost sure to occasion death. It is well known that many 

 eminent physicians have lost their lives in this way, and mill- 

 ions of men and animals have sunk into the arms of death in 

 consequence of absorbing septic poisons. In my opinion, there 

 is not the remotest chance of success in inoculation, when 

 putrid matter from the lungs of a dead subject is used. It is 

 understood that a great number of animals in the swill-milk 

 establishments loose their tails, the greatest wonder is, that 

 their bodies should survive the tails. 



In the next place, the location selected for the insertion of 

 the virus is not a good one ; it is too remote from the central 

 organs of circulation, so that if any damage occurs to the 

 tissues of the tail by the introduction of the virus, the repara- 

 tive process will not be so active as in other parts situated 

 nearer the heart. Even a simple wound, made in the tail, does 



