116 
©fficial IRepovts. 
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE ROYAL 
VETERINARY COLLEGE 
On Investigations carried on for the Royal Agricultural Society 
during the year 1891 . 
Some very important work has been done in the Laboratory of Com- 
parative Pathology during the past year. In addition to the 
inquiries which have been undertaken for members of the veterinary 
profession who have forwarded morbid specimens from various parts 
of the country, there have been special investigations carried on in 
reference to foot-rot in sheep ; the effects of the consumption of 
meat and milk, both raw and cooked, of tuberculous animals ; the 
value of Koch’s fluid (Tuberculine) ; the detection of tuberculosis 
in cattle 3 and the life-history of the lung-worm affecting cattle and 
sheep. 
It is not possible in the space available for this Report to deal 
with the several subjects of inquiry in detail, but a short statement 
of the results which have been obtained will be interesting. 
Foot-rot in Sheep. 
ISIuch has already been written on this subject in veterinary 
works and in agricultural journals ; but no conclusion has been 
arrived at which is generally accepted as to the nature of the 
disease. Many farmers entertain a firm conviction that it is the 
most contagious of animal diseases, wliile others dissent from the 
contagious theory entirely. The fact of several distinct diseases of 
the foot of the sheep being included in the term foot-rot has already 
been insisted on in explanation of the difference of opinion which 
exists, but it was demonstrated beyond doubt by the experiments 
which were conducted at the College in 1867-8 that foot-rot is 
capable of being conveyed from diseased to healthy sheep by merely 
rubbing the matter from a diseased foot into the skin between the 
divided hoofs. 
Experiments on a large scale were carried on during the past 
year at the College, and also under more natural conditions at 
H^row and Denham. It may be stated at once that the results 
