158 INOCULATION FOR PLEURO-PNEUMONIA IN CATTLE. 
various parts of the country, and mingled with others labour- 
ing under the disease in its different stages. From Brussels 
I proceeded to Hasselt, and had an interview with Dr. Wil- 
lems, by whom I was politely received, and who, during the 
whole of my stay in Belgium, showed the greatest readi- 
ness to assist me in the investigation. The town, which is 
the capital of the province of Limbourg, is situated on the 
confines of the great marshy district of Holland. The land 
around it is remarkably flat, and on one side only is under 
the plough, being on the other divided by ditches into 
meadow and pasture grounds. During the last sixteen years 
it is said never to have been free from pleuro-pneumonia, and 
in this time hundreds of animals have died w ithin it. It is a 
place full of distilleries, and contains from 1400 to 1500 
cattle in the summer, and upwards of 2000 in the winter ; the 
animals are fed on the refuse grains, &c., and, when fat, sent 
to the markets. From the situation, want of drainage, and 
accumulation of the filth of the town itself, added to the 
system of feeding the cattle, the kinds of food, neglect of 
ventilation of the sheds and removal of the dung, &c., Hasselt 
may be considered as the very centre and focus of a disease 
like pleuro-pneumonia. The cattle also of the farmers in the 
neighbourhood are, in general, very poor and badly provided 
for, and the sheds they inhabit dirty in the extreme : — thus 
secondary causes, as predisponents to the disease, are in full 
operation, both wdthin and w ithout the town. The malady is 
believed to have had its origin from some peculiar contamina- 
tion of the atmosphere, and to have extended from Germany 
to Holland and Belgium in 1828. Its introduction, how 7 ever, 
into Hasselt, in 1836, is ascribed by Dr. Willems to some 
diseased animals purchased by a cattle-dealer in Flanders, 
and wdiich a few 7 days subsequently came into the possession 
of his father and also of M. Platel, distillers in the town. 
The common people have been taught to regard the visitation 
as a judgment of St. Brigita, the patron saint of the cow 7 , 
according to the Romish Church. The image of this saint 
adorns one of the churches in Hasselt, and is bedecked with 
numerous votive offerings of wax and tallow models of 
strange-looking cows. 
These circumstances and opinions prove that the occur- 
rence of pleuro-pneumonia is as little understood in Belgium 
as in this or any other country. The father of Dr. Willems, 
generally, keeps in his sheds about 80 cow 7 s and oxen in the 
summer, and from 100 to 120 during the winter, feeding 
upon the grains, &c., obtained from the distillery. The 
animals, as they become fat, are disposed of, and their places 
