Infectious Diseases of Animals. 
485 
doubteclly attend the employment of professional men as inspec- 
tors all over the country, and it is presumably on this ground 
their services have been generally dispensed with. The objec- 
tion, however, has nothing to do with the fact which has been 
stated, namely, that the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act has 
not been fairly tested, excepting on those occasions when the 
prevalence of cattle plague or sheep-pox rendered it absolutely 
necessary that its provisions should be systematically and ener- 
getically enforced, and on those occasions it has always proved 
equal to the extermination of the diseases, notwithstanding that 
the imperfection of some of its sections has caused unnecessary 
delay in the adoption of the measures of repression. 
The record of the contagious and infectious diseases of animals 
for 1872 has a distinctive character owing to the outbreak of 
cattle plague in Yorkshire, the history of it will occupy the most 
prominent position in this Report. 
The Histoet of the Ootbkeak of the Cattle Plaque in Torkshiee. 
It is a remarkable circumstance that cattle plague was first detected in the 
neighbourhood of Pocklington, the place into which it was last introduced. 
Its existence for some time previously in the districts of Patrington and 
Bridlington was altogether unsuspected. The presence of cattle plague in an 
important agricultural county for a period of at least a month before it was 
detected, was in all probability due to the accident of its appearance in places 
where few cattle where congregated together, and where consequently only 
single cases of the affection occurred at intervals. 
The usual reticence of stock-owners in reference to the existence of disease 
among their .animals will in some measure explain the concealment of the 
malady ; and the slaughter of diseased animals by the butcher naturally 
retarded its spread although it failed to completely extinguish it. 
When cattle plague attacked a large herd and was left to run its course un- 
checked under the impression that it was the common foot-and-mouth disease, 
the discovery of its true nature necessarily followed the observation of ravages. 
As soon as intelligence of the outbreak near Pocklington was received an 
investigation was commenced, and, step by step, all the important particulars 
were elicited. 
Meanwhile, evidence, which was sometimes incomplete, often contradictory, 
and more than once misleading, had to be examined, and it was only after 
some weeks had been spent in the investigation that sufficient facts were 
collected to justify the formation of a definite opinion as to the origin of the 
disease. 
Before the report of the outbreak in Yorkshire was sent to the Veterinary 
Department, it was well known that the risk of the introduction of cattle 
plague had been several times incurred by the importation of Russian cattle, 
sufiering from the aflection, during the month of July ; and it will be desirable, 
in order to give a connected account of the circumstances attending the trans- 
mission of the disease to home-bred stock, to refer briefly to the importation 
of plague-infected cattle into the ports of London, Hull, Hartlepool, New- 
castle-upon-Tyne, and Leith. 
Mr. Nissler, cattle-dealer, of Cronstadt, purchased, during the summer, a 
large number of cattle in St. Petersburg market. 
From St. Petersburg the animals were sent to Cronstadt, in order that 
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