70 
FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE. 
parts of England contributed to the extension of the infec- 
tion, and many valuable animals were afterwards destroyed 
in consequence of the effects of the disease. 
About this time mouth and foot complaint assumed a very 
malignant form among cattle and sheep at Harrow, and from 
the circumstances under which it occurred there is reason to 
believe that the severity of the disease was due to the use on 
the land of water, which was contaminated with the excreta 
of infected animals. Owing to the tenacious character of 
the soil, the solid matter was retained on the surface, and all 
the cattle and sheep which were pastured on the ground be- 
came affected with mouth and foot disease, associated with 
fever of a low character, which occasioned great debility, 
and continued for a long period. 
In 1863 the affection appeared among the cattle at the 
Smithfield show; but from this time it gradually declined 
until 1863, when it recurred in a very severe form imme- 
diately upon the outbreak of cattle plague, not unfrequently 
attacking the animals which were at the time suffering from 
that disease. Many of the cases of eczema which were ex- 
amined in the autumn of 1863 presented remarkable lesions 
of the mouth, the abrasions of the membrane of the palate 
and cheeks being as extensive as they were in severe cases of 
plague. A reference to the evidence which was given before 
the Royal Commission on October 10th, 1865, will show that 
this resemblance in the state of the mouth in the two dis- 
eases attracted my attention at the time. 
No importance was attached to the prevalence of mouth 
and foot disease at this period, while the cattle plague was 
destroying the stock of the country ; and the fact of the 
disease assuming a virulent form, and simulating in some of 
its symptoms the more fatal malady, so far from leading to 
its immediate recognition, tended to render exact discrimina- 
tion more difficult, and even impossible, on occasions when 
neither hesitation nor delay was allowable. 
Hundreds of cattle affected with this malady were seen in 
the beginning of 1866, but when the restrictions upon cattle 
traffic were carried into effect with an increasing degree of 
stringency, as the cattle plague made incursions to new dis- 
tricts, mouth and foot disease and pleuro-pneumonia de- 
clined; and when the imminence of the danger led to the 
almost total stoppage of fairs and markets, and the move- 
ment of cattle all over the country, these diseases almost 
ceased to exist, or at least assumed proportions which pre- 
vented them from being specially observed. 
{To be continued .) 
