264 Plie Progress of Legislation against 
The same year that witnessed the outbreak of foot-and-mouth 
disease in England saw the introduction of pleuro-pneumonia 
into Ireland by means of a Dutch cow. 
With regard to pleuro-pneumonia among cattle, Mr. George 
Waters, veterinary surgeon, in his prize essay in this Journal 
(Vol. IX., 1848, p. 343) says, “It first appeared in this country 
about the year 1841, previous to which period it had existed and 
committed great ravages among the cattle in Ireland and on the 
Continent ; and in England a very great proportion of the whole 
number of cattle which have been affected have died.” Whilst, 
however, pleuro-pneumonia claims cattle only as its victims, 
foot-and-mouth disease attacks all ruminating animals, pigs, 
and even, it has been said, man himself. 
Although the Privy Council had powers 1 placed in their 
hands, under the Act 12 Victoria, cap. cvii. (1848-49), to pre- 
vent the spreading of contagious or infectious disorders amongst 
cattle, sheep, and other animals, they did not make use of them, 
and the diseases were allowed to spread themselves throughout 
the length and breadth of the land, without their contagious 
nature, or even the source of their introduction, being inquired 
into. 
The importation of sheep~pox in 1847 was the next serious 
trouble, and is thus reported upon in the Journal (Vol. XVIII., 
1857, p. 203) by Professor Simonds : — 
It was ascertained in the most conclusive manner that it had been 
introduced here by some “ Merinos ” which had been shipped at Tunning on 
the coast of Denmark, and also by some others shipped at about the same 
time at Hamburg for the supply of the English market, and in whose 
systems the disease was incubated. From the free commingling of these 
foreign sheep with our own breeds in the London cattle market, and also 
from the circumstance that many of them were purchased by farmers as 
“ stock sheep,” the small-pox was soon spread over a great extent of country, 
proving destructive to life in numerous instances at the rate of even 90 per 
cent. This state of things was met by legislative enactments with a view 
to arrest the progress of the disease, and happily they proved of essential 
service in so doing. By the expiration of the third year from the outbreak 
scarcely an instance of the disease could be met with in any part of the 
country, and this notwithstanding that tens of thousands of animals were 
to our own knowledge affected in the year succeeding its introduction. 
It is obvious what an advantage it would have been to 
the nation at large had these legislative enactments been ex- 
tended to cattle and swine. About the year 1843 my attention 
was drawn to an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia in a dairyman’s 
herd at Hereford, where the entire number of 22 milch-cows 
1 No special powers were, however, assigned to the Pri7y Council till 1868 
with regard to pleuro-pneumonia, and till 1878 with reference to foot-and- 
mouth disease. — Ed. 
