236 
FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE. 
be slaughtered ; and it may not be practicable to detain them 
in an isolated place until they recover. It must, however, be 
distinctly enunciated, that by just so much as the severity of 
the necessary precautions is relaxed, the danger of the spread 
of disease is increased. All fresh stock should be kept 
away from other animals on the farm for at least four days, 
which will be sufficient to prove whether or not they are 
infected with eczema. 
Persons in attendance on diseased animals should not be 
permitted to approach healthy stock, and the same precau- 
tion should be insisted on in reference to fodder and other 
substances which have been near animals affected with the 
disease. 
On premises where the disease exists, disinfectants should 
be freely used, and the most exact care should be exercised in 
removing all excreta, w hich should be mixed with quicklime 
in equal proportions. The selection of the method of disin- 
fection is probably of less importance than the previous 
adoption of a complete process of cleansing sheds and 
places where diseased animals have stood, by means of 
washing with hot w ater, containing common soda in solution, 
after which, carbolic acid, chloride of lime or zinc, or 
sulphurous acid gas, may be employed to complete the pro- 
cess. The question of the prophylactic efficacy of a separate 
foreign market for all imported animals was considered in a 
former essay with reference to the prevention of the intro- 
duction of foreign diseases of animals, and it is sufficient now 
to remark, that at the outports the arrangements which have 
been in force for some time for the reception and slaughter of 
all foreign cattle, landed in a defined area, have not proved 
sufficiently protective against the spread of infection, as the 
mouth and foot disease has in more than one instance 
extended from the defined parts of those ports where diseased 
cattle have been landed, to healthy stock in the neighbour- 
hood. 
The provisions of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, 
if properly carried out, will go far to arrest the spread and if 
vigorously carried out might even lead to the extermination 
of eczema and other infectious diseases, but it is only by the 
willing co-operation of those who are concerned that any 
legislative enactment in relation to the prevention of disease 
can be effectively carried into operation. There remains one 
measure, which will probably be deemed quite impracticable, 
but which would nevertheless tend more than any other to 
the extinction of contagious diseases, and greatly aid in the 
mitigation of unnecessary suffering, — the general adoption of 
