The Cure of Sheep Scab. 
381 
regard to these prepai'ations, and to express their regret that they should have 
inadvertently given publicity, in the columns of their Journal, to statements 
which were not necessary for the scientific objects they had in view, and 
which might prove injurious to the proprietors of the preparations in question,” 
the Journal Committee think it right to give this communica- 
tion the same publicity as the article by Mr. Gordon to which 
it is a reply, but without identifying themselves or the Society 
with the views expressed in it, any more tlian with those 
expressed in the article itself : — 
“ We have read the article whicli appeared in your \ aluable 
Journal of March 31 last, in which Mr. P. R. Gordon gives his 
personal opinions upon the various preparations for the cure of 
scab in sheep, and in which he ventures to pass some rather severe 
strictures upon manufactured dips, and names our preparation 
amongst others. We feel sure that we may ask you to give us the 
oppoi’tunity of laying our opinions on the other side before your 
readers, so that they may form a judgment upon the question. 
“ Mr. Gordon can hardly have intended to convey the most 
obvious meaning of his remarks, that all dips, except tobacco and 
sulphur, and lime and sulphur, ‘ have been prohibited in all the 
colonies,’ for he knows well enough there is a very large consump- 
tion of proprietary dips in the Australian colonies, and that Cooper’s 
Dip alone is used there upon at least 20,000,000 to 25,000,000 sheep, 
and that its use increases largely every year. 
“Scab was cleared out of those colonies in Australia, where it’does 
not at present exist, before Cooper’s Dip appeared upon the scene, 
but now, in Western Australia, where the disease still lingers, and 
where the merits of lime and sulphur, and tobacco and sulphur, are 
fully known, the one remedy which finds favour with the sheep- 
owners, and the use of which is directed by the Chief Inspector of 
the Colony, is Cooper’s Dip. It is quite fair to infer from this that 
the position of Cooper's Dip would have been the same in the other 
Australian colonies had its merits been equally well known there 
when they had scab. 
“ We do not deny that in the hands of some people, owing to the 
way they use it, our dip, or any other dip, may fail, and we take it 
that Mr. Gordon would admit the same of his own remedies, for no 
man knows better than he that care and thoroughness are indis- 
pensable in curing scab. 
“ Is it, however, fair to conclude that a dip which has succeeded 
in curing many millions of sheep of scab in North America, in South 
America, in South Africa, where sheep are run under similar con- 
ditions to the Australian, besides all over Great Britain and other 
parts of the world, is to be condemned for the reason that one or two 
contrary instances have occurred ? Surely the few should not pre- 
vail over the many. We can record hundreds of thousands of suc- 
cesses over a period of half a century, while every failure within our 
knowledge was due to lack of precaution necessary for the suc- 
VOL. in. T. S. — 10 c C 
