192 
Report on the Trade in Animals. 
if it did not include one that has probably been the most instru- 
mental in producing a cliange of opinion on the subject. 1 refer 
to the increased liability of stock to recurrent attacks. This 
fact is quite patent to those who go about the country and ascer- 
tain the experience of the agricultural community. Veterinary 
surgeons are doubtless right when they state that this recurrence 
was well known in 1839 and 1840 ; but the difference is this, 
that whereas in those days an animal which had had the disease 
two or three times might have been considered worthy of a place 
in the British Museum or the Royal Veterinary College, now 
such instances are probably well known to the majority of Englibl- 
farmers. 
The preceding facts, relating to the recent and prolonged 
outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, necessarily engaged the 
special attention of the Council of the Royal Agricultural 
Society, and induced them to communicate with the Privy 
Council, on several occasions. The members of the Society 
were informed of these steps by paragraphs in the Reports of 
the Council to the General Meetings held in the December 
of the last three years ; and also by the publication in the 
'Journal'* of a correspondence with the Secretary of the Vete- 
rinary Department of the Privy Council, including a statement 
of the principal provisions with respect to foreign animals con- 
tained in 'The Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, 1869,' and 
Orders issued thereunder. 
Continued observation of the circumstances attending the 
spread of the disease, coupled with a consideration of the above- 
mentioned regulations relating to foreign animals, induced many 
agriculturists to modify the opinion referred to by the Governors 
of the Royal Veterinary College in 1869, with reference to the 
influence of foreign importations on the recent extension of the 
epizootic. This change of opinion received an important confir- 
mation in a letter from Mr. J. Dent Dent, M.P., published in the 
first part of the ' Journal ' for last year.j The inference drawn by 
Mr. Dent from the Records of Contagious Cattle Diseases in 
Yorkshire during the years 1870-71, was that "the East Riding, 
which is the most purely agricultural part of the count}', has 
suffered the least, although the port of Hull, to which many 
German cattle are sent, is situated within it. This fact appears 
to negative the idea that the spread of these diseases, or their 
virulence, is proportionate to the introduction of foreign animals. 
The West Riding has suffered the most; this may be attri- 
butable partly to the fact that there was a great amount of foot- 
and-mouth disease existing in this Riding when the Act was 
* Second series, vol. vii. Part II., No. XIV. pp. 457-465, 1871. 
t Second series, vol. viii. Part I., No. XV., pp. 179-185. 
