OBSERVATIONS IN AUVERGNE ON THE EPIZOOTIC 
KNOWN BY THE NAME OF PERIPNEUMONIA 
IN CATTLE. 
By M. Yvart, Inspector- General of Veterinary Schools and of the 
National Sheepfolds. 
(Report to the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce.) 
M. Le Ministre, Sir, — AT your request I have visited the 
departments of Cautul, Avignon, and Lozere, with a view of 
collecting information on the epizootic disease of which the 
farmers of this country have so loudly complained; and have 
the honour of submitting to you the following report : — 
I am prepared to prove that this epizootic, in its symptoms, 
organic disturbance, and rarity of curability, ought to be consi- 
dered as of the same nature as that which long ago broke out 
in many parts of the north and east of France, and has been 
described under the denomination of epizootic peripneumonia. 
And, further, I insist on its contagious character. 
All in this part of the country agree in the epizootic now 
raging in these mountains (of Auvergne) in the centre of 
France being similar to that which broke out in the east and 
north of our own country, in the mountains of Switzerland, in 
many parts of Germany, in the plains of Holland, in the cattle 
houses of Flanders, & c. &c. Observations of the sick and post- 
mortem examinations confirm this opinion. In all climates, 
under all kinds of feeding and habitation, it has appeared the 
same, baffling every sort of conjecture as to the causes giving 
rise to it. 
The veterinarians and intelligent farmers of this part of the 
country have had their attention especially directed to — 1 The 
condition of the two principal enveloping membranes of the 
lungs, viz. the pleurae costalis and pulmonalis : 2dly, To the 
diseases apparent in the cellular tissue connecting the pleurae 
to the lungs, and entering into their substance for the purpose 
of connecting together their component lobules : 3dly, Into the 
alterations undergone by the lobules themselves. 
Jt being the custom in this part of the country not to dispose 
of the sick beast at an early period of his illness to the butcher, 
but to keep him as long as any hope can be entertained of his 
recovery, it not unfrequently happens that at post-mortem ex- 
aminations are discovered both old and new morbid changes in 
the same lung, so that there appears a possibility of estimating 
the date of the different cadaveric lesions. 
