ON PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 
185 
forms of disease, the types, the changes consequent on its progress » 
the symptoms of its decline, in a popular essay. It is a delusion 
to suppose that, after a man has produced his well-written paper, 
detailing with great clearness the modes of infection, the precau- 
tions against infection, the premonitory symptoms, and the treat- 
ment of the disease, you can take that essay, and, following 
out the plans therein laid down, be successful in the treatment. 
You have been led to believe that you can : you have tried dif- 
ferent modes of treatment, and they have failed ; you may be in- 
duced to try them again, and you will meet with the same result, 
and the disease will continue its ravages as it is doing now, with- 
out any exertions being made to arrest its progress. Your confi- 
dence in your professional adviser is destroyed ; your faith in all 
remedial agents is gone, and, as a natural consequence, whole 
herds are swept away out of large and extensive districts in a 
most lamentable manner. I know of no subject more humiliating 
for my own profession, or one that conveys a more sweeping re- 
flection on the powers that be, than this. If such a disease had 
been desolating the country of our horses, would not every effort 
have been put forth to stop the course of so dreadful a malady 1 
It is the object of this letter to direct your attention to certain 
facts which have hitherto been slighted, and to offer some sugges- 
tions, which, if acted upon, are calculated to check the progress 
and mitigate the ravages of the pleuro-pneumonia. They are such 
as your observation will easily detect, such as no eye but yours 
can take cognizance of. They are the results of my own experi- 
ence, and I will endeavour to place them before you as plainly and 
briefly as possible. 
It has for some time been supposed that our atmosphere, at cer- 
tain periods and in certain seasons, is loaded with poisonous vapour, 
destructive alike to vegetable and animal life ; and it has been 
proved that at different times, and under certain circumstances, this 
poison is generated by the decomposition of vegetable and animal 
substances. 
Certain diseases there are which, by proper precautions, may 
be prevented, and others that may be removed by proper remedies. 
But as to the cause of pleuro-pneumonia, the human mind, fertile 
as it is in invention, ready as it is to fix upon this and that as the 
origin of a disease — which, when once it has obtained its footing 
within the walls of the chest, defies the utmost skill employed 
against it — driven from post to post, is obliged to look up to the 
First Cause of all, and exclaim, in the language of the Patriarch 
of old, “ Behold the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is 
in the field." 
That God was the cause of the murrain which affected the cattle 
VOL. xxi. c c 
