262 Inoculation for Pleuro- Pneumonia in Cattle. 



Before stating the conclusions to which we have come, with 

 regard to inoculation being resorted to as a means to arrest the 

 progress of Pleuro-pneumonia, we will offer a few observations 

 on some points contained in this Report. 



It wdll be seen, that, although the casualties in Mr. Paget's 

 herd at Ruddington amount to the loss of the tails of eight cows 

 and the death of a young bull, they still are short of those on the 

 Continent. We find it recorded in the report of Dr. Ulrich, that 

 out of fifty-one animals inoculated in July of last year, in an esta- 

 blishment where the disease existed, no less than thirty lost their 

 tails, and four were killed by the operation. Four of the number 

 also died subsequently from pleuro-pneumonia ; and to show that 

 the inoculation had taken effect on these animals, it is remarked 

 that each of them had lost its tail. 



The information obtained, however, in Belgium, and embodied 

 in our former report, showed that the average deaths from inocu- 

 lation were estimated at 2 per cent., and loss of tails at about 12. 



The improvement which we have experienced in this country 

 doubtless depends, somewhat, on the inoculations being made in 

 the winter months, during which time the exudations from the 

 lung undergo slower decomposition, when exposed to the air, 

 than when a higher temperature prevails, as in the summer. It 

 is also attributable partly to the manner of performing the ope- 

 ration, because, although we have been constrained to make deep 

 and comparatively rough punctures, still we have used good 

 lancets, instead of bad-cutting double-edged scalpels, the counter- 

 part of a scratching knife, found on one's writing-table, and have 

 also refrained from twisting the instrument about in the wound. 

 That the extension of the inflammation to the upper part of the 

 tail and adjacent parts, in so many of the continental operations, 

 depended on these causes w^e cannot doubt. 



The cases seen at the Brussels school on the fifteenth day of 

 inoculation, where greater care had been exercised, showed the 

 tails of the animals entirely free from swelling and the incisions 

 nearly healed ; while many cows at Hasselt, at a far later period, 

 had their tails so engorged by inflammatory effusions as to lead 

 to the necessity of making incisions some 4 or 5 inches long to 

 relieve the distended tissues. 



Fortunately, such casualties as these are not of very frequent 

 occurrence ; nevertheless they show how dangerous a proceeding 

 it is to introduce, into the living organism of an animal, a fluid 

 which, as a product of disease, has been eliminated from the 

 vessels of another animal of the same species. These inoculations 

 in truth very closely simulate wounds received in the dissecting 

 room. 



It is an established fact that animal matter, thus accidentally 

 conveyed in dissection from man to man, is incomparably more 



