89 
Foreign Department. 
A NEW MEMOIR ON PLEURO PNEUMONIA. 
{Addressed to the Director of the Central Society of France .) 
By Doctor Willems. 
“ Monsieur le Directeur, — I have the honour of 
addressing to you some words on anti-pleuro-pneumonic 
inoculation. I do not understand much about the theory of 
inoculation and preservation ; but I shall speak of experiments, 
observations of facts, and of facts themselves. Thus it is, in my 
opinion, that the question ought to be resolved, and not by 
long and useless theorisations, in the manner some persons 
would seem to wish to entertain it; thereby only seeking to 
retard, either voluntarily or involuntarily, the solution of a 
problem so materially interesting the agricultural industry of 
Europe at large. 
“ At the present day I regard more than ever the inocula- 
tion of pleuro-pneumonia as a certain preservative against the 
disease. This principle resting upon an unshakeable basis, I 
come with a conviction doubly strengthened to relate to you 
the evident facts on which its efficacy rests. What proves to 
me that my system acquires daily more credit, and obtains 
more strongly the conviction of persons even who were either 
opposed or indifferent to it, is that, although I had for six 
months announced my discovery, and had met with invariable 
success for a twelvemonth, still did all the world hold it in 
an astonished reserve. Scarcely any person believed in its 
reality : but at the present day those persons are beginning 
to perceive the reality of it, and now it is undergoing what all 
discoveries cited in history have undergone. Pretenders in 
Belgium and Holland seek to appropriate a part of the in- 
vention, or even the invention itself; I do not contend for 
its merits, but, in all justice, let me have what is my own, and 
let no one deprive me of it, through pure longing for it or 
culpable envy ; it is the first of my researches, my experi- 
ments, and my reflections. Suum cuique. 
“ As I have already had the honour of announcing to you, 
Sir, the agricultural industry of the town of Hasselt has in- 
creased considerably since inoculation has been practised in 
it, and all those who desire it are invited to come and behold 
the progress it has made themselves. The MM. Nys, 
brothers, distillers, encouraged by the success they have de- 
