274 Quarterly Report of the Royal Veterinary College. 
on the whole no material addition has taken place in the number 
of rases officially reported. 
Two causes especially are in operation to keep the disease rife, 
viz., a desire to treat the animals rather than to send them at once 
to the slaughter-house, and a disposition to conceal from the 
authorities the existence of the malady on the farm. Pleuro- 
pneumonia possesses properties which differ in many respects 
from those of other infectious cattle-diseases ; and doubtless the 
so-called cured animals are often dangerousybci of infection to 
others. It may not be a difficult problem to fix the time of 
the commencement of infection, but when the materies morhi 
cease to emanate from the diseased animal, or to be so changed 
as to be non-productive of mischief to others, must be purely 
conjectural. The true policy of the agriculturist is therefore to 
send for slaughter every animal, the subject of pleuro-pneumonia, 
as early as possible after the declaration of the disease. 
Foot-and- Month Disease. — Under the circumstances of a special 
investigation into the several causes which are in operation to 
extend the area of this affection, and to lead to its repeated out- 
breaks in the same district, having been undertaken by the 
Society, little need be said in this Report. Severe and long-con- 
tinued as the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease has been, 
it has thrown no additional light on the pathology of the affection, 
nor on the laws which govern its extension. The facts developed 
to-day are identical with those which existed in 1839, when the 
first cases of " foot-and-mouth disease " were observed in England. 
The years 1840 and 1841 witnessed the same malignancy and 
the same victims of the malady, viz., cattle, sheep, and pigs, as 
1871 and 1872 have done. There are now many indications that 
the disease is again on the decline, so that ere long we may 
hope it will assume that which may perhaps be called its normal 
condition. 
The fatality of the affection is small, and the agriculturist should 
take care that he does not increase this, nor protract what would 
otherwise prove speedy natural cures by too great a desire to dose 
animals with medicinal agents. Care in protecting the diseased 
animals from inclement and all extremes of weather, and good 
nursing, are the principles which should rule in the manage- 
ment of animals affected with the foot-and-mouth disease, 
I have the honour to be. Sir, 
Your obedient servant, 
Jas. B. Simonds. 
n. M. Jenkins, Esq. 
