274 Report on the Health of Animals of the Farm. 
when the disease progresses in its ordinary manner, cases have 
occurred which could not be traced to cohabitation, nor to any 
ascertained means by which the materies morhi could be con- 
veyed from the diseased to the healthy animal. An instance of 
this kind took place on the College premises in the year 1870. 
A cow which had been kept for upwards of a year in a shed 
completely isolated from the rest of the premises, and into which 
no other cow, sheep, or pig had been brought, nor any known 
substance likely to have been charged with infecting material, 
was found one morning to be sufifering from foot-and-mouth 
disease. The attack was not a severe one, and in the course of 
a few days the animal was convalescent. 
Although few animals when exposed to the infection escape 
the disease — unless they have previously been the subjects of an 
attack — still a considerable difference is found to exist with 
regard to their susceptibility to be acted upon by the contagium. 
Pregnant animals, and especially those which are near the 
time of parturition, are far more susceptible to the infection 
tiian others. Milking-cows are also easily acted on, and are often 
tlie first to be attacked on a farmer's premises. Cattle which 
are travelled from place to place, whether fat or store animals, 
are thereby rendered more susceptible to the disease. This fact 
explains, in part, how it is that Irish stores which are landed 
in England are so often found to be affected within a few days 
of their arrival. In the early days of the malady, especially in 
1840-1, nothing was more common than for a lot of beasts sent 
by road, as the practice then was, to Smithfield Market to fall 
ill on the way, or to reach the market in a most exhausted con- 
dition from the severity of the attack ; while the animals left at 
home on the farmer's premises, from which those sent to market 
had been selected, remained perfectly healthy. Sheep suflered 
in the same way, and to an equal extent ; and in many of my 
weekly visits to Smithfield I have picked up a dozen hoofs or 
more which had been detached from the feet of sheep while 
being driven into or from the market, or moved from pen to pen 
l)y the drovers. Railway travelling has spared many scenes of 
this kind, and saved much suffering ; but, at the same time, the 
want of cleansing and disinfecting of the trucks hjxs tended 
greatly to spread foot-and-mouth disease more rapidlv through 
the country. 
The impurity of the water supplied to animals has also often 
had to do with their increased susceptibility. Some of the 
most malignant cases of the malady which have been submitted 
to my notice have arisen from this cause. In one instance in 
particular, where the washings from a kennel found their way 
into a brook, from which some valuable Shorthorn cows drunk. 
