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Home Department. 
REPORT ON INOCULATION FOR PLEURO-PNEUMONIA 
IN CATTLE. 
BY PROFESSOR SIMONDS OF THE ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
( From the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society .) 
[This Report applies only to the Continental proceedings, and forms, conse- 
quently, but the First Part of a General Report now in course of preparation.] 
In presenting a report on the subject of the prevention of 
pleuro-pneumonia by inoculation, it may be observed that 
there are few things, connected with the diseases of domes- 
ticated animals, which have of late years more painfully 
interested the agriculturist, than the existence of this malady 
among cattle. The affection has spread far and wide in this 
country, and destroyed great numbers of our cattle, under 
circumstances of the most opposite description, in conse- 
quence of its possessing all the characters that belong to an 
epizootic disease : thus not only the hopes of the farmer have 
been blighted, but in many instances his ruin has been nearly 
effected. As we know but little of the causes which have 
produced its repeated outbreak in certain localities, as well as 
its continued existence in others, so we are equally ignorant 
of those which led to its first introduction into this kingdom. 
Unlike many similar disorders, it cannot be traced to the 
direct importation of animals in whose system the disease 
was incubated, but, like cholera and other epidemics, it 
seems to have visited our shores, through, as has been sup- 
posed, a peculiar contaminated state of the atmosphere. 
Perhaps the only point w r hich has been clearly established 
with reference to its appearance here, is its prior existence in 
Germany and other parts of the Continent ; where for some 
years it had proved very destructive, and where it still remains 
unabated in severity. Various as have been the attempts at 
prevention as w 7 ell as cure, all at times have proved alike in- 
effective, and it may truly be said that none of these means 
have stood the test of extended experience. Under these 
circumstances it was to be expected that the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society would endeavour, by every means at its dis- 
posal, to throw some light both upon the nature of the 
malady and the laws which governed its spread, and likewise 
upon the causes w hich, although secondary in their opera- 
tion, were supposed to exert an important influence on 
animals in favouring the attack. This it has done by the 
awarding of prizes of great pecuniary value for the best essays 
