658 LECTURE ON THE DISEASES OF CATTLE. 
found that horses which were exposed to cold were not able to 
perform the highest amount of work. With regard to the epide- 
mic, I must say that, notwithstanding what I have heard this even- 
ing, I have strong doubts whether it is contagious. I have seen 
half of a flock taken, while the remainder have escaped. Nay, I 
have seen a hedge-row dividing two sets of animals, and those on 
one side have been infected, while those on the other continued 
free. 
A general discussion ensued, but of too diffuse a character to re- 
quire particular notice ; but one or two points are worthy of consi- 
deration, and we insert them. 
Mr. Cherry . — In the Gentlemans Magazine for. I believe, the 
latter part of the year 1756 (I speak from recollection), there is an 
account of a conviction by two country magistrates for driving in- 
fected cattle along a road, contrary to an order in council. Still, 
he repeated, they had nothing to do with the history of the last 
century so far as the epidemic was concerned. A great many 
animals died at that period, but they knew scarcely any thing of the 
circumstance, and the diseases disappeared about the year 1760. 
The existing disease had been going on from 1835 to 1847, and 
quite enough was seeil and known to enable them to deal with 
things as they are. They wanted to understand the disease. 
They did not want to be told what pleuro-pneumonia was; 
they knew it was a disease of the lungs, but they wanted 
to know what produced it. Again, what was sore mouth? 
whence did it arise ? and how could it be checked or stopped ? 
These were the questions which they were interested in dis- 
cussing, and if possible, solving. The truth was, they had been 
looking for that which they could not find, — a remedy applicable 
at all times and under all circumstances. He had never yet seen 
two animals affected ilike ; and, if he might speak of treatment, 
he had never given the same dose to two animals placed side by 
side. One question which presented itself was, whether contagion 
was capable of being given to an animal in health. It was not a 
question merely between an animal susceptible of disease and 
another not so. To illustrate the nature of susceptibility, he would 
observe that half-a-dozen men might be put into damp beds on 
the same night : one would have rheumatism, another gout, another 
fever, and so on. What was done simply brought out the idosyn- 
cracy of the system. It was found in practice that an animal in a 
state of susceptibility, if brought into contact with another animal 
on which the disease was in an advanced stage, would suffer from 
the contact. We were strangely at war about the word “con- 
tagion he felt satisfied that a great many of the symptoms con- 
nected with the breaking out of disease in animals were the result 
