346 
ON EPIZOOTIC DISEASES. 
a greater or less degree change — the bouillon is neither so well 
tasted or nourishing — the colour of the cellular tissue and of the 
muscles is of a darker or putrid hue. These circumstances are 
surely sufficient to prevent the use of these animals as an article 
of food. 
With regard to the skins of infected animals, should they be 
buried with the carcasses of those that have perished? This would 
certainly prevent the propagation of the disease ; but is it abso- 
lutely necessary? May not the skins as soon as they are de- 
tached from the animal, be sent to the tan-yard ? The tanner, in 
his preparation of thick skins, is compelled to have recourse to 
the commencement of the putrefactive process, and he fears no 
fatal result from it. In the preparation of white skins he has 
recourse to the chloride of lime and of sodium, the sulphate of 
alumen and of potash, and the vegetable and woody matters 
which are used in tanning the skin. All these different proceed- 
ings, and particularly the last, are well calculated to neutralize 
almost any degree of contagion which might otherwise result. 
The action of chlorine and of the tanning process would be suf- 
ficient to destroy all infection. It would, however, be a proper 
precaution to pour away the water in which the skins have been 
macerated, and to scatter a quantity of lime over the place in 
which the tanning process has been carried on. 
The epidemic having established itself in a certain district, are 
there any preservative measures — any means by which it can be 
confined to the district in which it had its birth, and its ravages 
limited even there? This desirable object might, perhaps, be 
accomplished if there was a community of feeling between the 
proprietors of the cattle, the administrative authorities, and the 
veterinary surgeon ; and without this community of feeling the 
best conceived measures may not only be useless, but in the 
highest degree destructive. 
Two measures have occasionally been adopted in order to arrest 
the destructive progress of an epidemic. The first of these is to 
destroy the cattle that inhabit a supposed infected district — not 
only those that appear to be actually diseased, but that have 
been exposed to infection. This has occasionally been tried in 
most of the countries of Europe : but can such a course be de- 
fended ? If we thus ruin the proprietors, are we not adding to 
the evil ? Can we be assured that we have perfectly succeeded 
in accomplishing our object? May not the disease continue to be 
propagated by a thousand empoisoned germs, diffused in the at- 
mosphere for an indefinite period, and only awaiting the fitting 
time again to devastate and destroy? We may be enabled to a 
certain extent to cut off the communication between the sick and 
