810 
The Gh-owth of Veterinary Pathology. 
most terrible maladies common to man and the lower animals. In 
books published twenty years ago there cannot be found the least sug- 
gestion that the disease might be due to a germ, and yet we know 
to-day that the locking of the jaw from which the disease derives its 
popular name is due to the action of a deadly poison manufactured in 
the wound by a bacillus. 
As another illustration let us take a well-known disease peculiar 
to the horse, and known as Strangles. This is a disease in which 
thej’e forms about the horse’s throat, and sometimes in other parts of 
his body, collections of pus or matter, and if anyone will refer to text- 
books published only a few years ago he will find the most varied 
views — all of them wrong — regarding the cause of the suppuration. 
It is long since it was known that the matter which forms in strangles 
is mainly composed of small elements derived from the blood, and 
named pus-cells, but until quite recently the most important element 
in the pus was overlooked, viz. a minute organism growing in the 
form of a miniature necklace, and now termed the streptococcus of 
strangles. Every case of strangles is caused by growth and multi- 
plication of this germ, first in the horse’s nose, and then in the deeper 
parts to which it is able to penetrate. 
It was stated at the outset that pathological research has dis- 
covered new diseases within the last twenty years, and an example 
is afforded in Actinomycosis. It is only sixteen years since this name 
was coined in Germany to mark a disease which subsequent experi- 
ence has shown to be by no means uncommon in various parts of our 
own country. It is a new disease only in the sense that it was 
formerly confounded with other perfectly distinct affections, chiefly 
cancer and tuberculosis. We now define this disease as one caused 
by a vegetable parasite called from its mode of growth the actino- 
myces or ray-fungus, and by the presence of this fungus in the dis- 
eased parts we can easily distinguish between this affection and 
tuberculosis. 
These illustrations may convey some idea of the rate at which 
knowledge has been extended regarding the nature and cause of 
diseases, and it may now be asked whether there has been like pro- 
gress with reference to the means of curing and preventing these 
diseases. It is a truism that the discovery of the cause of a disease 
is the first step towards the discovery of the means of cure or pre- 
vention, but it has perhaps to be confessed that the discovery of 
remedies often lags a long way behind tlie discovery of causes. Still, 
magnificent results have already been achieved in the case of some 
diseases. Take, for instance, the Pasteurian method of protecting 
animals against anthrax by means of attenuated culture of the 
anthrax bacillus, — a method which, during the last 10 years, has 
annually saved many thousands of pounds to stock-owners in 
France. Similar methods have been applied with more or less suc- 
cess in the case of several other diseases, but at the present moment 
we appear to be on the threshold of still greater discoveries regard- 
ing the means of combating diseases that have hitherto defied every 
therapeutic effort. It has recently been shown that it is possible to 
