78 The Farmer's Veterinary Adviser. 



ostensibly come from another district and thus gain admit- 

 tance. The agents of great live stock interests are sent into 

 Congress and to foreign lands to deny point-blank the ex- 

 istence of animal plagues that are simply notorious in their 

 prevalence. The patriotic citizen demands the appointment 

 of two or three microscopists to examine and certify to the 

 soundness of our meat-products in a centre where many 

 thousands are butchered daily and where a whole army of 

 microscopists could not satisfactorily carry out such work. 

 In no other field of human activity is a most thorough know- 

 ledge of the subject and a most unbending and impartial 

 administration demanded than in this. 



DISrNTECTION. 



Disinfection cannot be treated fully in the short space that 

 can here be given to it, yet the general principles and some 

 of the more potent of the agents employed may be noticed. 



The first and main object in disinfection is to secure per- 

 fect cleanliness. From the buildings, cars, loading banks, 

 ships, quays, yards, manure-pits, drains, cesspools, harness, 

 clothing, utensils, etc., all decaying organic matter should be 

 removed, by scraping, washing, emptying, etc., as such decom- 

 posing organic matter is the food which sustains and pre- 

 serves the disease-germs out of the body. Even the water 

 and air must be carefully seen to, since in close places they 

 are usually charged with invisible particles of organic matters 

 in a state of decay, the most suitable field for the growth of 

 contagious principles. These, too, tend to purify themselves 

 in a free circulation of air, and ventilation may be largely 

 relied upon for this purpose, unless the deleterious supplies 

 are too abundant from some adjacent putrid accumulation, 

 as dung-heaps, cesspools, leaky drains, or soil saturated with 

 filth. Purity of the surroundings kills many contagious ele- 

 ments on the principle of starvation. 



