INOCULATION FOII THE MOUTH AND IIOOF DISEASE. 341 
From the prevalence of this disease in 1838, I, with many 
others, was led to believe that it arose not only from miasmatic 
influence, but likewise from infection. In order to ascertain 
whether I was right in my suspicion, and also whether it was 
possible to transfer it to some other part of the body where it 
might be less injurious to the animal, I made the following 
experiments. 
The first was on a flock of 900 sheep, 160 of which were 
already lame. I had those selected in which the horn had not 
quite come off from the foot, but where it was so loose that a 
slight pressure of the finger would be enough to separate it. 
With the matter found in the hoof l inoculated 500 animals on 
that side of the ear which is most free from wool. In the course 
of twenty-four hours, considerable fever had arisen : in forty- 
eight hours, the inoculated places exhibited symptoms of intense 
inflammation, and in seventy-two hours, I found in many of 
them small blisters full of serum. On the sixth day I examined 
them all separately, and found that nearly every bladder had 
burst, and that purulent matter, of an unpleasant smell, was 
escaping from them. During the first ten days after the ino- 
culation, sixty of them became lame, although in each the 
blister, or pock, had risen on the spot inoculated. That lame- 
ness, however, was not very great, and in general lasted only 
about two days. All the other inoculated animals remained 
free from the disease, though in some not inoculated it raged as 
much as before. I can only explain the circumstance of sixty 
becoming lame after the inoculation by the supposition that they 
must previously have been infected. Other experiments have 
been attended with similar results. I have not yet had sufficient 
opportunity of experimenting on cattle to be enabled to give any 
decisive results; but were I called on to give an opinion, I should 
say that inoculation would protect them also. 
The contagiousness of this hoof-disease in our domesticated 
animals has been maintained and denied, as well as its origin 
from epizootic miasmata. Carefully instituted experiments, in 
places and times where the disease is most prevalent, can alone 
decide this point. In all the experiments hitherto made respect- 
ing inoculation, these conditions have not been attended to with 
sufficient exactness to render the result such as may be confidently 
relied on. For my own part, I have been led to the conviction 
that this disease is propagated by inoculation, by the vapour 
arising from the skin, by the breath, or by the use of the milk, 
and may thus be communicated to other animals, and even to 
men. Whether, however, any amelioration of the disease could 
be produced by inoculation, as is the case in sheep-pock, is a 
VOL. XVI. Z Z 
