272 



Inoculation for Pleuro- Pneumonia in Cattle. 



In taking leave of this question we wish again to record our 

 regret that we should have been compelled to give particulars in 

 extenso which we had carefully avoided even the mention of in our 

 first Report. Justice, however, to the Society which we had the 

 honour to represent in this investiga.tion, and justice to ourselves, 

 required that the full yet simple truth should be declared. 



Elsewhere we have pointed out the danger which is connected 

 with the introduction of diseased exudations or products into the 

 organism of a healthy animal. In proportion to the extent and 

 duration of a malady, so will these exudations become more 

 vitiated, as well as changed by their retention within the body, 

 by the operation of chemical laws, and the danger of the pro- 

 ceeding will be correspondingly increased. Some of the conti- 

 nental experimenters, and among them Dr. Liidersdorff, have 

 said that no effects will follow the employment of the serous fluid 

 which is effused into the areolar tissue of the lung at the com- 

 mencement of Pleuro-pneumonia. They add that in an advanced 

 stage of the disease the effusion is almost certain to produce its 

 action, and that at the termination of the malady not only does it 

 never fail to act, but that it often produces the death of the 

 inoculated animal from the mortification which ensues. These 

 phenomena are just those which medical men know to belong to 

 dying, dead, and decomposing animal matters in these different 

 conditions, giving us another proof thereby that no special virus 

 exists in the exudations of a diseased lung. It must be remem- 

 bered that in small-pox, to which we have so frequently alluded 

 as the best example of a specific disease, the vijms is equally 

 present in the Jirst as in the last exudations. 



As we have not to discuss the utility of other prophylactic 

 measures besides inoculation in Pleuro-pneumonia, we end this 

 Report by giving seriatim the conclusions deduced from our inves- 

 tigations and experiments : — 



1. That inoculations made by superficial punctures and simple 

 erasions of the skin invariably fail to produce any local inflam- 

 matory action, being the reverse of the case with regard to the 

 vaccine disease, small-pox, and other specific affections, of which 

 it is an indication of success. 



2. That the employment of fresh serous fluid, and a cleanly 

 made but small incision, during the continuance of a low tempe- 

 rature, will also almost always fail to produce even the slightest 

 amount of inflammation. 



3. That deep punctures are followed by the ordinary phenomena 

 only of such wounds, when containing some slightly irritating 

 agent. 



4. That with a high temperature, roughly made incisions, and 

 serous fluid a few days old, local ulceration and gangrene, pro- 



