Foot-and-Mouth Disease : its History and Teachings. 5 
into activity, not before, but just after infected animals had 
imported a new stock of the contagion from France, is so 
monstrous a fitting of theory to fact to serve a purpose, that it 
cannot for a moment be entertained. 
The first case of foot-and-mouth disease in 1880, outside a 
foreign cattle market, was detected on the 1st of October in 
a dairy in the City of London ; and immediately afterwards, 
reports of the existence of the disease were received by the 
Veterinary Department from Bedfordshire and Kent. Surrey, 
Essex, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, tiuckinghamshire, Leicestershire, 
and Nottinghamshire were quickly invaded, and, by the end of 
the year, the contagion was extensively spread. Hence it 
clearly appears that whilst foot-and-mouth disease broke out in 
London at the end of September, no re-importation of the con- 
tagion could have escaped inland from any of the infected 
cargoes which had been landed at English ports and safely 
slaughtered, between January 1 and the middle of September 
1880, at which period an arrival at Deptford of infected French 
animals was speedily followed by the outbreak in a London dairy. 
The chain of evidence is complete, and the fact demonstrated 
that the regulations in force at Deptford Market, which failed 
to prevent rinderpest from travelling inland from its landing- 
place, in 1877, also failed in 1880 to intercept the subtle foot- 
and-mouth contagion. Thus, in the middle of September 1880, 
the Inspector of the Privy Council, at Deptford, had his 
attention called to signs of foot-and-mouth disease in the 
tongues of some French cattle which had been slaughtered in 
the market. A portion of the lot had been disposed of before 
the authorities became aware that the infected animals had 
been in the lairs of the market, in which place they might have 
been freely handled by persons attending both Deptford and 
the Metropolitan Home Cattle Markets on the same day. Here 
was one obvious channel by which the contagion might have 
escaped into London. 
On September 20, a cargo of cattle from Havre was landed at 
Deptford, and by " the second day after landing," i.e. before 
adequate precautions had been put in force to intercept possible 
contagion among the animals, they were inspected, when some 
of them were found to be affected with foot-and-mouth disease ; 
by that time the contagion could have, indeed had, been carried 
past the precincts of the market. The official report of the 
Veterinary Department afforded specific information on this 
point ; it stated that " Consignees and others who have business 
at Deptford conduct their affairs on a large scale, and the 
dealer who handles diseased animals in the morning at Deptford 
may, in a few hours, be touching animals standing in a market 
