PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 607 



cause keen competition, the poor animal is walked into the 

 public market, and stands with a number like herself amongst 

 store animals. Such a practice is as reckless and horrible, as 

 if a patient with small -pox were placed amongst a lot of non- 

 vaccinated people for hours together; and the healthy cows 

 just fresh from the country are especially prone to imbibe a 

 deadly virus. 



I am conversant with another evil demanding instant sup- 

 pression. A cow-dealer may buy a fine lot of healthy cows 

 for the town. They are trucked, and somewhere near their 

 destination a truck, containing diseased animals, is attached 

 to the train. I knew an instance of a dealer, who, with three, 

 large trucks full of fine English cows, had, on reaching Car- 

 stairs, to submit to their being placed behind a lot of three 

 suffering from the lung disease. Imagine how favourable 

 the breeze and the proximity of those animals to spread 

 contagion ! It should be a standing rule that every cattle- 

 truck should be washed thoroughly, and sprinkled with an 

 antiseptic substance, before other cattle are exposed in it. 

 There are animal poisons, such as that of epizootic aphtha, 

 which may be found to adhere to places, and spread disease 

 with the greatest certainty. 



The home trade in diseased cattle is sufficient to keep up 

 for an indefinite period of time pleuro-pneumonia in a 

 country like our own, but I have specially alluded, in the 

 Edinburgh Veterinary Review, to the necessity for legisla- 

 tion to prevent the constant importation of diseased cattle 

 from foreign lands. In the June number for the current 

 year, I state : Free trade may have its disadvantages. The 

 impetus it gave twenty-five years ago to the cattle trade 

 led to the introduction of much disease on British soil, and 

 unless some influential men will take an interest in this 

 subject and exert themselves for the common good, we shall 



