ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY' OF ENGLAND. 
411 
belongs to a class of diseases which can be far more easily 
prevented than cured ; and the Governors would remark that 
the measures they recommended for adoption as prophylactics 
have stood the test of further experience, and been of essential 
service in numerous instances of outbreaks of the malady. 
Inoculation as a preventive has had but few advocates, nor 
can the Governors believe that those who have refrained from 
adopting it are acting otherwise than on right principles of 
science ; and, consequently, they have not suffered greater 
losses than those persons who have not had recourse to the 
operation. The diminution in the number of cases which, in 
a few isolated instances, have seemingly accompanied the 
introduction of inoculation, have been but singular coinci- 
dences, and are altogether due to the ordinary causes which 
regulate the outbreak, extension, and departure of this class 
of diseases, 
Parasitic Affections . — These maladies, which are more or less 
the cause of heavy losses to the agriculturist, have been re- 
markably rife, and during the last summer many hundreds of 
lambs have fallen victims to the presence of worms in the 
respiratory organs. These losses have also been continued 
up to this time, but in somewhat diminished numbers. In 
too many instances nothing was done by the flock-masters to 
arrest the progress of the disease ; nor, indeed, was its true 
cause often ascertained by them. The most marked symptoms 
of the affection are a cough (which becomes increased by 
exertion, and also by changes of temperature), hurried 
breathing, fastidious appetite, and a falling away in condition, 
the animals being in very many instances ultimately carried 
off by diarrhoea, which supervenes upon the other symptoms. 
In some cases death takes place more suddenly, arising from 
active congestion of the lungs. The exhibition of a few doses 
of oil of turpentine and linseed oil as an anthelmintic, followed 
up by chalybeate tonics, and the occasional inhalation of 
diluted chlorine gas, were found to be very effective remedies. 
To these were added, and with much advantage, the sup- 
plying the animals with a generous and varied diet, and pro- 
tection against the more common changes of the weather, by 
folding them with hurdles stuffed with straw. The Governors 
have to thank a member of your Council, Mr. Fisher Hobbs, 
for sending to the infirmary some lambs, the subjects of this 
disease, which enabled the Professor of Cattle Pathology to 
direct the attention of the pupils to the malady in a far more 
practical way than he could otherwise have done. Besides 
lambs, young cattle have likewise suffered to a great extent 
from the same cause ; and the like principles of treatment. 
