692 
MR. CHERRY’S LECTURE 
dicine which shall cure this disease. Now, I am convinced that 
the effort has been made in the wrong direction — that we have 
looked too much at the means of cure instead of the means of pre- 
vention — and that this is the reason why we have failed to discover 
a remedy. 
There are various things to be taken into account in dealing 
with this important question. We must inquire how far breeding 
has any thing to do with the disease ; — how far locality and feeding 
have a bearing upon it. These are things which have a very 
great influence on the progress of the disease ; and it is in this 
direction, I think, that we shall ultimately find remedial measures. 
The disease broke out in 1840 amongst our domestic animals. I 
now exclude horses from my consideration, and confine myself to 
animals which are reared as stock. The disease then shewed 
forms of a low fever type, and it spread very rapidly through the 
kingdom, though it came on apparently with so much suddenness. 
If attention had been paid to the subject at the time, it would have 
been perceived that the disease was long lurking in the animal — 
that there had been oftentimes premonitory symptoms for months. 
It is to these premonitory symptoms that attention should in future 
chiefly be directed ; for, when the disease had arrived at that stage 
in which it is frequently found in its more virulent forms, nature 
has not sufficient power remaining to throw off the malady. The 
disease is, in itself, a form of low fever, accompanied by depres- 
sion of all the vital energies. In the first onset there is no parti- 
cular organ which is the seat of the disease. There seems to be, 
as it were, a want of vitality in the whole of the component parts * 
of the body. Thus, the disease will go on for an indefinite period, 
sometimes longer and sometimes shorter, until it attacks some 
particular organ. But I never saw any one form of the disease 
coexisting with another form. 
Then, another question of very serious importance is — How far 
such diseases are hereditary, or rather how far predisposition to 
them is so ? If an animal is born of diseased parents, you find the 
disease sometimes existing at the period of birth, but generally the 
disease is not found to exist at so early a period. In this respect 
it varies in different species : sometimes an animal will go on well 
until maturity, when the disease will be manifested in a virulent 
form. There have latterly been a great number of cases of this 
kind. There has been a predisposition derived from the parents 
who were in a state of disease ; and at last some accidental cause 
has come into operation, and produced that form of disease which 
is called pleuro-pneumonia ; but still, in all such instances*, what 
we witness is the result, and not the disease itself. In the next 
place, it is a very important inquiry — How far breeding in-and-in 
