454 
Foot-and- Mouth Disease. 
of the diseased beasts, are certain to communicate the disease to 
cattle, sheep, and pigs which are moved along the same roads or 
are conveyed in the same trucks or vessels, immediately after the- 
diseased animals have deposited the morbific matter. 
Much of the injury done by transit of diseased cattle and 
other animals cannot be prevented by any care. It is impos- 
sible to disinfect roads, or even to ascertain at what points the 
virus has fallen. Pens at railway stations are in some respects, 
equally difficult to deal with. Their chief use is for the recep- 
tion of animals for the purpose of trucking, and on market days 
they are in constant requisition for many consecutive hours, as one 
lot of animals after another arrives at the station to be put into 
the trucks. A single diseased animal, which may occupy one of 
the pens for a short time in the early part of the day, may leave 
behind enough of the morbid matter to infect a considerable pro- 
portion of those which immediately follow, and until the work of 
the day is over it is impossible to disinfect the pens : indeed, 
when the hours of daylight barely suffice for the work of getting 
the animals off, the delay would disarrange the whole proceedings. 
The most that can be done, is to insist on the cleansing and dis- 
infection of the pens as soon as possible after being used, and 
before they are again employed for the reception of animals in 
transit. 
Vessels and trucks of any kind used for the conveyance of 
animals should certainly be cleansed and disinfected after the 
animals are removed and before other animals are placed in 
them. Strictly, this disinfection is only necessary after diseased 
animals have been conveyed, but it is impossible to prove that 
diseased animals have not been conveyed ; the only safe course 
in such cases is to assume that they have been, and to proceed 
accordingly. 
Introduction of infected animals from the continent may be 
placed among the causes which are concerned in the spread of 
foot-and-mouth disease in this kingdom, but the extent to 
which this cause has acted has been enormously over-rated. 
Occasionally infected animals may escape from the landing 
place to the interior of the country, but considering the short 
period of incubation of the disease, it is not likely that animals 
which are sent to us from infected herds or flocks abroad will 
pass through the time required for transit and the twelve hours'^ 
detention, very often prolonged to double the time, without 
showing some signs of disease sufficient to attract the attention 
of the inspector ; and when the law requires that the whole of a 
mixed cargo must be slaughtered if any one animal of the cargo 
is affected with the disease, it cannot be reasonably contended 
that the regulations for the protection of home-bred stock are in 
