526 
SMALL-POX IN SHEEP. 
have had the natural pox, and have been cured, and 80 have 
died ; making the rate of mortality 3 or 4 per cent. Now, such 
mortality as this cannot surely be compared to that occasioned by 
natural and confluent pox, which is 10 per cent, at least, and 
which, quite unlike inoculated malignant pox, occasions abortions, 
changes in the fleece, and wasting of flesh. 
And, besides, is there no possibility of finding among the whole 
of the sheep attacked, one or more having a benignant pox, 
wherefrom lymph for inoculation may be procured ! And if there 
happen circumstances under which the inoculation is forced from 
a malignant pox, these occurrences, everybody will acknowledge, 
are extremely rare. 
I have heard several veterinary surgeons of the Somme say, that, 
in the epizootic pox which prevailed in that department during 
the hot weather of the last summer (1846), the pustular eruption 
amounted to no more than papulae pale or red, isolated, indis- 
tinctly bordered, pitting, and affording no good lymph. The sheep 
coughed much, and discharged abundantly from the nose a yellow 
tenacious mucus; symptoms which indicated an acute eruptive 
inflammation of the respiratory passages. In this case, certain 
veterinarians thought of taking the mucus from the nose for ino- 
culation, or else the sanguinolent product of improperly developed 
pustules ; experiments which might have been followed by lament- 
able results. 
Considering the condition of the pustules, the difficulty of ob- 
taining good lymph, the vicissitudes of temperature, the accidents 
that may befal experiments of inoculation, and, lastly, a circum- 
stance not to be forgotten, the benign form the malady in many 
flocks takes, many veterinarians would dissuade farmers from ino- 
culation as dangerous and useless ; though this is a case which, 
supposing it to be real, I look upon as rare. And, besides, I cannot 
understand why, among a large number of sheep attacked with the 
disease, one cannot meet with one or more subjects of pustules 
suitable for taking lymph from for inoculation, and, by propagation 
of it through others, procure a sufficient quantity either for imme- 
diate use or for preserving. 
It has likewise been objected, that, in the case of a pox known 
to be epizootic, the inoculation of sheep still in good health (though 
coming either from a flock attacked once or twice with the pox, 
or from one inevitably exposed to the contagion of it, and among 
which consequently the disease exists in the incubative form) 
may be productive of violent fever, malignant secondary eruption, 
or other serious consequences likely to end in death. Without 
attempting to say whether, in reality, the introduction in succession 
and at different periods of two viruses into the orgasm would be 
