SMALL-POX IN SHEEP. 
529 
To recapitulate : — I believe myself warranted in coming to the 
conclusion, in regard to such objections as have been made, as well 
to any that may be made, to inoculating flocks either attainted or 
menaced with contagion : — 
1st. That, supposing it be true that inoculation gives the 
pox to animals who would not have had it naturally, such an 
objection is not sustainable in the case of sheep belonging to flocks 
already suffering in the first or second stage ; experience having 
shewn that, under such circumstances, all the sheep of the flock 
take the natural pox. 
2dly. That, if it be true, that, by inoculating flocks in good 
health, but menaced with contagion, we introduce the disease 
where it has never been before, and so multiply the fomes both 
of contagion and infection; nevertheless, clavelisation is attended 
with the immense advantage of circumscribing such fomes, setting 
limits to them, and diminishing both the amount and virulence of 
the contagious elements which feed them, and, in the end, of setting 
a period to the duration of the epizootic. 
3dly. That there is no example on record of clavelisation, 
practised on sheep of different ages and breeds communicating a 
pox alarming and fatal like the natural pox; and that, in the 
instances of inoculation with a virus mal-selected or taken from 
animals having a fatal pox, the loss up to the present day has not 
exceeded from 3 to 4 per cent. 
4thly. That inoculation made on sheep presumed already to be 
infected with natural pox, and under the influence of incubation, 
has not caused a loss rising above 2 per cent. 
5thly. That it is the interest, as well as the duty, in a large 
majority of cases, of certain farmers of the middle orders, either 
to promote or delay inoculation in their flocks, and even to refuse 
to have it at all whenever isolation is considered sufficient to pre- 
vent contagion. 
6thly, and lastly, That the expenses incurred by inoculation 
are trifling. 
Wherefrom I have a right to conclude, that the inoculation of 
flocks of sheep, viewed as a matter of administrative police, is, some 
rare exceptions notwithstanding, an operation perfectly rational 
and practicable, as a means of modifying the duration of clavelous 
(small-pox) disease, of circumscribing its contagion, of consider- 
ably diminishing its mortality, and of dispensing with the necessity 
of having recourse to measures of isolation, oftentimes inconvenient 
and onerous to the farmers. 
Recueil de Medecine Veter inair e, July 1848. 
[To be continued.] 
