466 INOCULATION FOR PLEURO-PNEUMONI A IN CATTLE. 
and the death of a young bull, they still are short of those on 
the Continent. We find it recorded in the report of Dr. 
Ulrich, that out of fifty-one animals inoculated in July of last 
year, in an establishment where the disease existed, no less 
than thirty lost their tails, and four were killed by the opera- 
tion. Four of the number also died subsequently from 
Pleuro-pneumonia ; and to show that the inoculation had 
taken effect on these animals, it is remarked that each of 
them had lost its tail. 
The information obtained, however, in Belgium, and embo- 
died in our former Report, showed that the average deaths 
from inoculation were estimated at 2 per cent., and loss of 
tails at about 12. 
The improvement which we have experienced in this 
country doubtless depends, somewhat, on the inoculations 
being made in the winter months, during which time the 
exudations from the lung undergo slower decomposition, 
when exposed to the air, than when a higher temperature 
prevails, as in the summer. It is also attributable partly to 
the manner of performing the operation, because, although 
we have been constrained to make deep and comparatively 
rough punctures, still we have used good lancets, instead of 
bad-cutting doubled-edge scalpels, the counterpart of a 
scratching knife, found on one’s writing table, and have also 
refrained from twisting the instrument, about in the wound. 
That the extension of the inflammation to the upper part of 
the tail and adjacent parts, in so many of the continental 
operations, depended on these causes, we cannot doubt. 
The cases seen at the Brussels school on the fifteenth day 
of inoculation, where greater care had been exercised, showed 
the tails of the animals entirely free from swelling and the 
incisions nearly healed ; while many cows at Hasselt, at a far 
later period, had their tails so engorged by inflammatory 
effusions as to lead to the necessity of making incisions some 
4 or 5 inches long to relieve the distended tissues. 
Fortunately, such casualties as these are not of very fre- 
quent occurrence ; nevertheless they show how dangerous a 
proceeding it is to introduce, into the living organism of an 
animal, a fluid which, as a product of disease, has been elimi- 
nated from the vessels of another animal of the same species. 
These inoculations in truth very closely simulate w T ounds 
received in the dissecting room. 
It is an established fact that animal matter, thus accident- 
ally conveyed in dissection from man to man, is incomparably 
more dangerous than it would be if introduced into the system 
of any ordinary animal. The reverse of this is likewise equally 
