Contagious Diseases of Lice Stock. 
281 
Professor Penberthy, of the Royal Veterinary College, was 
sent for, and he recommended the whole herd to be inoculated. 
This was done upon M. Pasteur’s system, and only one cow 
died after the operation, and that one was supposed to have 
been previously affected ; inoculation being a preventive, not a 
curative remedy. Anthrax is now added to the list of scheduled 
contagious diseases in animals. 
Severe as the trial of the cattle plague was, so long as it 
lasted, it did more to educate the public mind than all the 
losses that the country had previously suffered amongst its flocks 
and herds, and induced the study of certain animal diseases 
that the faculty had previously paid but little attention to. 
The diagnosis of diseases is now better understood, as is also 
their pathology ; the theory of spontaneous generation has been 
upset and the true origin of many diseases discovered. The 
microscope has revealed numerous secrets as to the germs of 
diseases which could not have been brought to light in any 
other way. Let us hope that these valuable researches may 
be continued to the relief of the suffering of the dumb animals 
and for averting severe losses to owners of live stock. 
T. Duckham. 
II. 
In the past, legislation for the prevention of animal plagues 
appears to have been adopted exclusively in cases of emergency. 
Only in modern times do we meet with Acts of Parliament deal- 
ing with the whole subject, and conferring powers on administra- 
tive bodies to be exercised as occasion may demand. 
At the end of the last century scab or mange in sheep 
appears to have attracted attention, and a measure was passed 
by the Legislature to deal with that disease. The Act of 
38 George III. cap. lxv. June 21, 1798, provides that sheep 
or lambs affected with scab shall not be exposed on common 
lands, and it was further requii-ed that sheep, when turned out 
to graze on common lands, should be marked with the owner's 
initials, obviously for the purpose of securing the identification 
of offenders against the Act. 
There is no account of any Orders of Council, or of other means 
of enforcing the Act, and it is probable that very little attention 
was paid to its provisions. 
The importation of sheep affected with sheep-pox in 1847 
created great alarm among flockmasters on account of the 
rapid spreading and fatal character of the disease, and in 1848 
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