12 Foot-and-Mouth Disease : its History and Teachings. 
certain districts under the title of the Fairs in Districts Order, 
and, from time to time, fresh districts were added as foot-and- 
mouth disease spread. It is admitted that the "effect of the 
Order was to reduce the number of outbreaks in the districts to 
which the Order applied, while the number increased in other 
districts outside them," The Order ceased to operate in the 
spring ; at midsummer came a lull, when a well-concerted effort 
might have had a chance of quickly stamping out the disease ; 
but no such wise counsels prevailed, and, in December, recourse 
was again had to the Fairs in Districts Order for dealing with 
certain portions of the country. 
The disease nevertheless spread more extensively, and made 
more victories in the next year, an increase of it in the early part 
of 1883 being attributed to contagion brought back to us from 
Ireland ; and the unexpected spurt of the contagion late in the 
summer attained the monthly maximum of 6,139 outbreaks in 
the five weeks of September. If the re-imposition of restrictions 
on the movement of animals and the holding of cattle-markets 
all over the country, toward the close of 1883, accomplished any 
results, it was in a clumsy and unendurable manner ; probably 
the subsidence of the disease from natural causes may be con- 
sidered the truest explanation of the rapid diminution of cases 
in the winter and spring of 1884. 
(3.) The Germ Theory. 
Because a few isolated outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease 
have occurred, without apparent source, months after the whole 
kingdom had been declared free from the contagion, and 
because the outbreaks at Necton Hall, Norfolk, at Crowland 
Common, Lincolnshire, at Ampthill Park, Bedfordshire, and 
others which might be mentioned, are not clearly traceable to 
re-importation, people recur to the old fallacy that, after all, the 
disease is of spontaneous origin, or is " in the air," or, as a 
well-known veterinary authority once put it, is " an atmospheric 
wave of disease of an abnormal character." 
Many years ago, I read the published experiments of the late 
Dr. Budd, of Bristol, upon scarlet fever and other infectious 
diseases, which convinced me of the soundness of the germ 
theory : subsequent experience and study of the etiology of the 
subject — especially the researches of M. Pasteur — have con- 
firmed me in the belief that the principle applies to all conta- 
gious diseases, and that outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease 
which point to spontaneous generation would, if the cases could 
be thoroughly traced home, show that they were due to the 
presence of germs which had not lost their vitality. 
