278 
The Progress of Legislation against 
animals dispersed were closely followed and slaughtered ; three 
others were found to be affected, also one native cow that had 
been in contact with the Canadian cattle. The promptitude 
shown in following up the different lots and carrying into effect 
the provisions of the law averted the threatened danger. 
The dairy-sheds in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin were 
very prolific nurseries of pleuro-pneumonia. In each of 
these great cities inoculation was resorted to, and various 
scientific men were warm in their advocacy of it. But inocula- 
tion has been tried the world over, and no country in which it 
has been adopted has been rendered free from the disease. So 
far back as 1851 that illustrious patron of all that was good 
and useful, the Prince Consort, saw the reports of Dr. Willem’s 
discovery of inoculation as a preventive of the malady, and in- 
duced the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society to send 
Professor Simonds to Belgium to inquire into it. Upon his 
return he made many minute examinations and tried numerous 
experiments which are recorded in his elaborate reports in the 
Journal (Vols. XIII. and XIV., 1852-53). It may be added 
that the experience of the last forty years in that country, the 
home of its birth, confirms the correctness of these reports. 
It is hoped that the disease which has inflicted such serious 
losses throughout the United Kingdom for fifty-one years is 
now exterminated, 1 and, let us trust, never to return. It has 
involved a long and trying struggle to attain this happy result. 
One solitary outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in January 
1886 records the date of the extermination of that dreaded 
disorder, and marks the fallacy of the doctrine, so long held, of its 
spontaneous origin. But, unfortunately, after upwards of six 
years’ immunity from its ravages, an outbreak occurred among 
some Dutch cattle in the Metropolitan Cattle Market on 
February 4, 1892, to the dismay of the nation at large. The 
value of having a Minister of Agriculture of Cabinet rank was 
then quickly manifest. The advantages of the immunity from 
the disease that had been enjoyed by the country for the previous 
six years had so taken possession of the public mind that only 
one desire prevailed throughout the length and breadth of the 
land, and that was for the speedy and complete extermination 
of the disorder. The market was closed and no animal was 
allowed to be removed. The whole of the veterinary staff of the 
Board of Agriculture was at once set in motion, and the most 
energetic measures were taken to trace every animal that had 
. escaped from the market before the latter was closed by the 
1 As to recent outbreaks of pleuro-pneumonia at Barnsley and Hendon 
see Appendix, p. lxix. — E d. 
