J 



1 6 History of A nirnal PlagiLes. 



in this case, a contrary tendency to that of resisting the effects of the 

 contagion. For, destroying the bile, and checking, by other means, the 

 digestive ferment, as well as lowering the vis v'ltce from some other less 

 known power, they weaken the habitof the beasts, and consequently 

 dispose them to receive the infection more readily, and suffer, with less 

 resistance, its action in bringing on a putrescent state of the fluids. It 

 '' has been, therefore, everywhere found that, whenever any of these 

 ■ methods have been pursued, more beasts have been lost than when they 

 were left to the friendly assistance of nature undisturbed, and only 

 secured from those accidents that would injuriously affect their health 

 in all circumstances. 



' There is another proposed method of sa\'ing cattle from the mortal 

 effects of the murrain, of which some trial has been made, that properly 

 comes under consideration along with the preceding. Because, though 

 it is not, indeed, the preventing the infection, but, on the contrary, the 

 giving it, yet it is calculated to answer the same end, that is, the prevent- 

 ing the ill effects of the contagion by anticipative means. This method is 

 the inoculation of the cattle with the murrain, in the same general manner 

 as is practised with mankind for the small-pox. The fact is well known 

 that beasts which have had the murrain from accidental infection, like 

 mankind with regard to the small-pox, do rarely take it again 5 and it 

 being presumed on this ground that the analogy betwixt these two dis- 

 eases still holds good in other particulars, and, consequently, that the 

 communicating the murrain by inoculation would have the same con- 

 sequences on the cattle in preventing their receiving the infection again, 

 and in rendering the symptoms of the disease proportionably milder and 

 less fatal, it was imagined the use of this method might be, in a con- 

 siderable degree, a substitute for a preservative from the infection itself. 

 But experience has evinced that this presumption was erroneous in 

 point of fact ; and there is, besides, one essential circumstance of differ- 

 ence betwixt the murrain and the small-pox which constitutes the use 

 of inoculation detrimental in the former, even if it were productive of 

 tlie same consequence as in the latter, with respect to the mitigation of 

 the symptoms or the prevention of future infection. The experiments 

 ' made to explore the effects of inoculation in the murrain, though not 

 , all alike in their result, have yet given sufficient lights to determine that 

 they are very different from those of inoculation for the small-pox, and 

 that it can in no degree answer the same end, even with respect to the 

 particular beasts subjected to it ; much less can it conduce to the re- 

 straining and diminishing the mortal effects of contagion in any manner 

 that may be beneficial to the public. 



' In the first place, it is sufficiently proved from instances that the 



