Inoculation for Plenro-Pneumonia in Cattle. 



267 



Removes, therefore, cannot be effected on true or scientific prin- 

 ciples. We have no materies morhi to be modified and improved 

 by being passed through the systems of healthy animals in suc- 

 cession, as is the case with the iDrimary virus of a small-pox 

 vesicle. 



The occasional incubation of the so-called " pulmonic virus," 

 after its introduction into the wound, of which fact we have 

 recorded some notable instances, has been advanced as an argu- 

 ment in favour of its specific nature, and it has been said to 

 agree in this particular with the poison of rabies. To this we 

 reply, that when the rabid virus does come into operation, no 

 matter how remote the period may be, it produces that dreadful 

 disease (rabies), but that when this supposed virus of Pleuro- 

 pneumonia begins to act it produces only local inflammation and 

 ulceration. The cause of the serous fluid remaining now and 

 then inert for three or four weeks may be somewhat difficult to 

 explain ; but no more so than that of two animals receiving an 

 injury at the self-same time by which some foreign agent enters 

 the body, and the one being quickly affected with local inflam- 

 mation in consequence, the other not being affected perhaps for 

 some weeks. All pathologists are familiar with facts of this 

 description. 



As to " Jennerian principles " being the foundation of these 

 inoculations of cattle, as has been stated by Dr. De Saive and 

 others, we hesitate not to say, that, whatever else may belong to 

 them, no principle expounded by Jenner will be of the number. 

 By vaccination, which, as we have shown, is essentially inocu- 

 lation, Jenner either prevented the small-pox or mitigated its 

 severity when it did occur. Pleuro-pneumonia, on the contrary, 

 when occurring in an inoculated animal, is in no way lessened 

 either in its severity or fatality by the inoculation of that animal 

 with the so-called special virus of this disease. On this point 

 there seems to be no diversity of opinion. Belgian, Prussian, 

 Dutch, and English investigators agree here. We say nothing of 

 France, as the report of her Commission has not yet reached us. 



We now come to a question to which allusion has previously 

 been made as affecting our credit, and which we find published 

 in the Belgian Report. It appears that two cows belonging to 

 M. Willems sen. were attacked with Pleuro-pneumonia sub- 

 sequent to their inoculation, and that one died and the other was 

 killed, as her recovery was past hope. The onus of this casualty 

 would seem to have been intentionally thrown upon us, as w^e 

 are said, by M. Willems sen., to have inoculated these animals 

 when in Hasselt and to have used for the purpose improper material. 

 It will, however, before making any comments on this statement, 

 be better to quote at length the particulars as published in the 

 Report. 



