31 
ON MURRAIN^ OR THE VESICULAR EPIZOOTIC. 
the flesh of animals affected by the vesicular epizootic. This 
assertion is, however, entirely gratuitous, and is disproved by 
the fact, that many persons have for a considerable time par- 
taken of the flesh of such animals with impunity. In very 
severe cases, however, and where the typhoid fever has wrought 
deleterious changes on the blood, on the various secretions, and 
on the solids themselves, the use of the flesh should certainly be 
abstained from. 
The milk of the sick animals has in very many cases been 
used with entire impunity, both by man and the lower animals. 
When the disease is very severe, the quantity of milk yielded 
quickly diminishes ; but, in most cases, the secretion does not 
present any appearance which enables us to distinguish it from 
the milk of animals in good health. It retains its natural colour, 
odour, taste and consistency, unless where the udder takes on 
acute inflammation. 
The consul of health at Paris, in a report to M. le Prefect de 
la Seine, makes the following conclusive statements regarding 
the innocuousness of the milk of animals affected by the vesi- 
cular epizootic: “The milk of diseased cows, considered with 
regard to its effect on the health of human beings, does not ap- 
pear to be productive of the slightest inconvenience ; and all 
examinations of it, whether chemical or microscopical, have not 
been able to trace any characteristics that might lead to the fear 
that its effects would be pernicious. 
It has been said that calves, lambs, and pigs, previously in 
good health, have contracted the disease by being fed on the 
milk yielded by cows suffering from the epizootic. We are 
rather incredulous as to the milk itself being capable of com- 
municating the disease. The animals might have received the 
contagion in some other way; or, if the milk were the means of 
its transmission, it is probable that the active and efficient cause 
was some of the matter expressed during milking from the ve- 
sicles or ulcerations on the teats or udder. 
Post-mortem Appearances . — Post-mortem examinations of 
animals dying from, or destroyed whilst affected by, the vesicular 
epizootic, exhibit extreme congestion and occasional patches of 
inflammation throughout all the mucous surfaces. In certain 
stages, vesicles exactly similar to those in the mouth may be 
discovered in the pharynx, larynx, and oesophagus, and also, 
but in fewer numbers, in the stomach and intestines. This 
congested and inflammatory state, although principally existing 
in the alimentary canal, is not confined to it alone ; the irrita- 
tion and the vesicles also affect, but in a more mitigated form, 
the mucous lining of the respiratory apparatus. The bronchial 
tubes contain a frothy mucus. The lungs are sometimes much 
