Introduction. 



XXXIU 



of the world, and since communication by sea and land has become so 

 rapid and extensive, she is scarcely more exempt from these afflictions 

 than her continental neighbours. Nor is she so well prepared to 

 encounter them. The science on which other nations rely, and with 

 such benetit, to suppress these contagions, has scarcely yet found a 

 home in Britain. 



When a destructive disease threatens the domestic animals, and, 

 through tliem, the most valuable section of our national wealth, it should 

 be the duty of all concerned to obey the dictates of science and experience, 

 in order to avert danger and loss. But it must be confessed that to attain 

 successftil results individual etfortsgo for little. It is on the strict observ^- 

 ance of sanitary laws, and to the -wise measures prescribed by authority, 

 that rehance must be placed. In the words of an eminent medical , 

 writer, * The day has gone past for an isolated individual or craft to 

 avert pestilence, as Empedocles did when he shut out the sirocco by' 

 stopping a mountain-gap, and removed intermittent fevers by changing 

 the course of the river H}'psa. These large and beneficent operations • 

 are in our day reserved for Governments ; and our duty as a profes- 

 sion is to urge upon Government, by means of our own governing 

 bodies, the necessity of undertaking the prevention of epidemic disease, 

 both among men and animals, to point out the best modes of securing 

 this prevention, and to see that these measures, when become law, are 

 properly carried out. In a word, it is our duty not to appropriate to 

 ourselves, as is too often erroneously done, but to endeavour to impress 

 upon our rulers the sentiment so nobly urged upon Coesar by Tully, 

 ' Homines enim ad Deos nulla re proprius accedent quam salutem 

 hominibus dando.' 



Agriculture must ever occupy a higher position than manufactures ; i 

 and the prevention of epizootic diseases should be regarded as a political 

 question, involving more or less the well-being of the whole com- ^ 

 munity; not merely affecting those who own or who endeavour to derive 

 profit from rearing animals, but also affecting the public at large, as 

 regards health, the supply of food, and other essentials. In the exten- 

 sion of a disease of this kind, not only is there loss to the individuals 

 who possess the animals, but also to the public, who have not only a 

 diminished quantity or more expensive supply of food, but also often 

 incur the risk of obtaining it of an inferior or injurious (juality, or are 

 otherwise inconvenienced. 



No more startling fact is afforded us in the history of animal plagues, 

 than that which proves that the cattle of this country have been per- 

 secuted by contagious diseases of a most destructi\e character for nearly 



