Inoculation for Pleuro- Pneumonia in Cattle, 375 



inches diameter on the ischium, they appeared to be in health. 

 This ulcer was described to be an effect of the inoculation in the 

 tail, the system of the animal being thereby impregnated with 

 morbific matter, and which in numerous instances, I may here 

 remark, produces far more serious results than were observed 

 in this particular case. These animals, when reported to be in 

 a fit state, were to be sent to various parts of the country and 

 mingled with others labouring under the disease in its dif- 

 ferent stages. From Brussels I proceeded to Hasselt, and 

 had an interview with Dr. Willems, by whom I was politely 

 received, and who, during the whole time of my stay in Bel- 

 gium, showed the greatest readiness to assist me in the investiga- 

 tion. The town, which is the capital of the province of Lim- 

 bourgh, is situated on the confines of the great marshy district of 

 Holland. The land around it is remarkably flat, and on one side 

 only is under the plough, being on the other divided by ditches 

 into meadow and pasture grounds. During the last sixteen years 

 it is said never to have been free from pleuro-pneumonia, and 

 in this time hundreds of animals have died within it. It is a 

 place full of distilleries, and contains from 1400 to 1500 cattle 

 in the summer, and upwards of 2000 in the winter ; the animals 

 being fed on the refuse grains, &c., and, when fat, sent to the 

 markets. From the situation, want of drainage, and accumula- 

 tion of the filth of the town itself, added to the system of feeding 

 the cattle, the kinds of food, iieglect of ventilation of the sheds 

 and removal of the dung, &c., Hasselt may be considered as 

 the very centre and focus of a disease like pleuro-pneumonia. 

 The cattle also of the farmers in the neighbourhood are, in 

 general, very poor and badly provided for, and the sheds they 

 inhabit dirty in the extreme : — thus secondary causes, as predis- 

 ponents to the disease, are in full operation, both within and 

 without the town. The malady is believed to have had its 

 origin from some peculiar contamination of the atmosphere, and 

 to have extended from Germany to Holland and Belgium in 

 1828. Its introduction, however, into Hasselt in 1836 is 

 ascribed by Dr. Willems to some diseased animals purchased 

 by a cattle-dealer in Flanders, and which subsequently came 

 into the possession of his father and also of M. Flatel, distillers 

 in the town. The common people have been taught to regard 

 the visitation as a judgment of St. Brigita, the patron saint of 

 the cow, according to the Romish Church. The image of this 

 saint adorns one of the churches in Hasselt, and is bedecked 

 with numerous votive offerings of wax and tallow models of 

 strange-looking cows. 



These circumstances and opinions prove that the occurrence 

 of pleuro-pneumonia is as little understood in Belgium as in 



VOL. XIII. 2 c 



