Report of the Governors of the Royal Veterinary College. 365 
Passing from enzootic to epizootic affections, and notably to 
the one designated Cattle-Plague, it is a source of much satis- 
faction that this disease — the most infectious and fatal of all 
known maladies affecting animals — has not again been imported 
from the Continent. 
No better proof can be given of the value of existing legislative 
measures in limiting or controlling the spread of infection. 
Twice during the year the Lords of the Council found it impera- 
tive to issue Orders preventing the importation of cattle from 
Belgium, and also fresh meat, fresh hides, unmelted fat, hoofs, 
horns, manure, hay, &c., while the continued existence of cattle- 
plague in France required the rigid enforcement of the Order 
against importation of bovine animals from that country. The 
loss which France has sustained during the year from cattle- 
plague must have been enormous. The state of the country 
seems to have paralysed the efforts of the authorities to rid France 
of the disease, and even to have given encouragement to attempts 
at its cure, than which no surer means of spreading the area of 
the infection could be devised. France will doubtless have to 
reckon her losses by hundreds of thousands, while, in 1865, she 
freed herself of the cattle-plague, by the prompt adoption of the 
stamping-out system with a loss of only forty-three animals. 
Next in importance, as a fatal cattle disease, stands pleuro- 
pneumonia. Throughout the year this malady has undergone 
very little variation, and although existing in upwards of forty 
counties in Great Britain, the actual centres of disease have not 
averaged more than seven or eight in each county. Among the 
remedies which have been brought prominently before the public 
as curative, as well as preventive, of pleuro-pneumonia is 
carbolic acid. This remedy, some years since, was tried by the 
professors of the College, but without their being able to satisfy 
themselves that it possessed any really curative power, or even 
preventive, excepting as a disinfecting agent. The pathology of 
pleuro-pneumonia shows that it must ever be ranked among 
incurable diseases. It is true that many animals recover from 
the immediate consequences of the attack ; but, perhaps, never 
without some portion of the lungs being left more or less in a 
disorganized condition. The so-called recovered cases of pleuro- 
pneumonia are often the foci of infection ; the true policy there- 
fore of the farmer is to get quit of such animals as quickly as 
possible. 
Another of this class of diseases is the one commonly known 
as the " foot-and-mouth disease," an affection which very often 
causes serious losses to the stock owner, although it rarely 
produces death, except in young animals. The chief facts 
relating to the spread of this malady have often been brought 
