Histo7'y of Animal PI agues. 329 



with a moderate share of expense and trouble, or it w ill never be put 

 in practice by the proprietors of cattle so generally as to save a sufficient 

 number of them to be of any moment to the public. Very lillle regard 

 has, nevertheless, been had to this consideration by the ph}sicians who 

 have taken in hand the discovering^ means of relief atjainst the murrain. 

 They seem only to have sought after what might be efficacious in nature, 

 and directed the use of what they thought so without calculating in the 

 least whether the consequence of its use could be lucratively of any 

 benefit to the private persons who might adopt it, or reflecting, that if 

 it were of no benefit to them they would not adopt it, nor the public 

 therefore reap any advantage from it. Even the most able of those 

 who have been engaged in this pursuit, have seemed to forget wholly 

 this circumstance, which is indispensably requisite to the forming an 

 effectual plan for the saving any material nvuiiber of the cattle, as it 

 would be more profitable to abandon them to the effect of the disease 

 than to incur a greater expense in attempting it than is balanced by the 

 value of the chance of savins; them.^ 



o 



* In calculating the advantage that is to be received from any remedy for the 

 murrain, the expense incurred by tlie use of it for the mumber of beasts actually 

 saved must not be considered alone, but that of all those with which it has been 

 used, in order to the saving such number, must be included likewise. In order, 

 therefore, to determine the value of the chance of saving the cattle by any 

 means of remedy comparatively with the cost of such means, it is proper to 

 state the circumstances in this manner : — It appears that at present in Holland 

 somewhat less than half the beasts which take the infection recover without the aid 

 of any medicinal assistance, and in our country, where, as we have before observed, 

 the beasts are stronger, we may safely reckon at least that proportion. But as it 

 is impracticable, when the signs of the distemper first appear, to distinguish with 

 any certainty those beasts which would die without aid, it is necessary all those 

 that are seized with the disease should be subjected to the curative treatment. Let 

 us further, in order to bring the v/hole matter into this point of view, suppose a 

 method proposed that would save one-half of the beasts which would die without 

 the aid of it. It will then result from these premises that, on the whole, to save 

 one beast the expense of the medicinal treatment must be incurred on four, as one- 

 half would recover if they were left to nature, and only one-half of the other is to 

 be saved by the medicinal aid. For a method which could effect that must be 

 justly deemed highly efficacious. In the methods which have been recommended, 

 and particularly that by the latest and best writer on this subject in our own country, 

 the expenses of labour, medicaments, the extraordinary diet would amount in the 

 treatment of each beast to at least one pound five shillings, and, according to some 

 prescriptions, they would rise to double that sum ; so that in any of these methods, 

 according to the manner of computing here laid down, the saving each beast would 

 cost at least five pounds, and in some of them ten. This great expense would not 

 only take away all inducements, in the view of gain from the owners of the beasts 

 to employ such means for saving them, but the greatest ]iart of such owners would 

 not be able to make the disbursements necessary to it in proportion to their stock 



