Contagious Diseases of Animats. 
9 
slaughtered at the port of landing. To attain this end he 
laboured long and strenuously, and in the early seventies, after 
the last outbreak of cattle plague in this country, he and his 
great friend, Mr. T. C. Booth, of Warlaby, spared neither time 
nor trouble in collecting evidence and obtaining information 
likely to be of use to the Parliamentary Committee then about 
to inquire into the question. The Committee owed their 
appointment largely to the representations of Mr. Henry 
Chaplin, a statesman who for years had never ceased to work 
in furtherance of the cause. Mr. Booth, in the course of his 
evidence before the Committee, stated that the losses in his 
celebrated Warlaby herd from repeated outbreaks of foot-and- 
mouth disease alone amounted to no less than 30,00(P. The 
Act of 1878 which was based upon the recommendations of 
the Committee, represented a great advance on previous 
legislation ; but it did not go to the root of the question, since 
it only conferred upon the Privy Council a permissive power 
of prohibiting the landing of foreign animals. 
Unfortunately Mr. Booth’s most useful career was cut 
short by death in 1878, and he therefore did not live, like his 
friend and fellow worker, Mr. Wilson, to see his labours bear 
full fruit and to experience the culmination of his hopes. 
The matter was not allowed to rest long in the state in 
which it was left by the Act of 1878. In 1884, through the 
instrumentality of the sixth Duke of Richmond and Gordon, 
who was then Lord President of the Privy Council, Mr. 
Chaplin introduced into the House of Commons a Bill which 
provided further safeguards against the introduction of disease 
from abroad, especially of foot-and-mouth disease, and made 
it obligatory upon the Privy Council to prohibit the landing of 
foreign animals from all countries unless they were satisfied that 
the precautions taken afforded reasonable security against the 
introduction of the disease. Long before this Mr. Wilson had 
worked incessantly in furtherance of the cause he had so 
thoroughly at heart, and for the two years previous to the passing 
of the Act of 1884 — for it was eventually passed in that year, 
in spite of great opposition — he travelled 2,000 miles a month, 
interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence, and doing all that 
could be done to strengthen the hands of the promoters of the 
Bill, besides attending constantly in the lobby of the House 
of Commons to watch and assist its progress there. Both the 
Duke of Richmond, as Lord President of the Council, and 
Mr. Chaplin bore eloquent testimony to the invaluable ser- 
vices rendered by Mr. Wilson on behalf of this Bill, which 
was a great advance in the efforts to clear this country of the 
fell scourge of foot-and-mouth disease, as was that of 1878 in 
regard to cattle plague. 
