LECTURE ON THE DISEASES OF CATTLE. 
659 
of vitiated, and therefore injurious, food. They knew that disease 
existed in apples and potatoes to a fearful extent ; and in all seeds 
they found occasionally a want of vital energy. Animals were 
often prone to disease by inheritance, receiving in the process of 
formation a condition which rendered it susceptible to attack. 
Take the case of scour in lambs. As regarded that disease, the 
treatment was applied in the wrong direction. Properly, medical 
treatment should be applied rather to the dam than to the young. 
Mr. Ailchison remarked upon the carelessness of farmers in 
breeding from animals without knowing the state of their consti- 
tution. He felt convinced that mpst diseases amongst sheep, 
cattle, and horses, arose from their own negligence ; they did not 
take sufficient care to have a healthy sire and a healthy dam to 
produce that which would afterwards re-produce (hear, hear). 
They must in future attend more to this point, and to the general 
susceptibility to disease (hear, hear). 
The Chairman said, that, as they had exceeded the usual time 
allowed for discussion, lie must now make a few closing remarks. 
He had listened with considerable pleasure to the interesting and 
able address of their friend Mr. Cherry ; and he felt that he would 
be expressing the sentiments of all present when, in due time, he 
should move a vote of thanks to that gentleman (Cheers). Mr. 
Cherry had stated that many animals caught the disease from con- 
suming food which was not in a healthy state. Such being the 
case, the question naturally arose, whether the public itself might 
not be receiving injury from the consumption of that which was 
sent up to Smithfield and Leadenhall market to be sold, perhaps, 
at an inferior price. This matter was certainly well worthy of the 
due consideration of Government, and he hoped that their atten- 
tion would be given to it. 
Mr. Cherry said that the speech just delivered by the chairman 
fully sustained the conclusions at which he (Mr. Cherry) had ar- 
rived on that subject. He had not intended to assert broadly that 
the disease was not contagious. He had only intended to qualify 
the word contagion, being satisfied that the disease was much less 
the effect purely of contagion than was generally supposed. There 
was great confusion of ideas produced by the use of the words 
“ contagion” and “ infection,” as if they were synonymous. “ Con- 
tagion” came from the Latin root con, and lingo, to touch with ; 
whereas “ infection” signified floating on the water or in the air. 
They all knew that the miasma of marshy ground produced disease 
simply from infection, floating, as it did, in the air; but that was 
very different from diseases produced by the act of touching. 
They ought carefully to observe this distinction, and to remember 
that what was often spoken of as the rule was in reality an excep- 
