Inoculated Cattle Infecting. 79 



are inserted, it cannot be supposed that they exert any 

 influence on the economy through any direct action on 

 the normal seat of the disease. If protective at all it 

 must be by reason of the reproduction of the germs in 

 the blood or in the seat of inoculation. If in the blood 

 there must be danger of their being given offby the vari- 

 ous free surfaces and notably by the lungs. If in the 

 tail, there is still the risk of the germs escaping from the 

 wound, drying up in the building and being inhaled by 

 other cattle with fatal results. It is true that the risks 

 are incomparably less from germs escaping from a wound 

 in the tail than from those exhaled with every breath 

 from the diseased lung and diffused through the whole 

 surrounding atmosphere. Yet even from the inoculation 

 wound the disease has been conveyed. Keynal mentions 

 the case of an inoculated Brittany cow at the Alfort Vet- 

 erinary School which infected two others standing with 

 her. 



I have now under observation a stable into which the 

 lung plague is alleged to have been introduced through 

 the inoculation of the cows four months ago. The stump- 

 tails attest the reality of the inoculation, the raw ends of 

 several its recent adoption, and yet the sickness pre- 

 vails. Again, it has been shown in localities in New Jer- 

 sey and elsewhere when inoculation has been practiced 

 on a previously healthy herd a certain number of animals 

 have afterward manifested the disease. 



Eeason and experience agree in showing that the poi- 

 son may be thus introduced into healthy stables and there 

 fore inoculation must he absolutely condemned whenever r 

 speedy and effectual stamping out of the disease is de- 

 sired. No country has ever succeeded in exterminating 

 this plague by practicing inoculation, The most ardent 

 votaries of the practice, Belgium, Holland, Prussia, En- 

 gland, Australia, South Africa, New York and New Jersey 

 have preserved the plague for decades in spite of the 



