AMONG CATTLE. 
469 
would be their guide in every future case, and that they would 
reason and recommend to the extent of their experience and the 
facts brought before them. 
Sh' Thomas Gooch stated, that he frequently observed that 
the cow would not touch butter-cups, but that sheep devoured 
them readily. 
“ Mr. T. Raymond Barker informed the meeting of a singular 
experiment which had been made by a gentleman in Gloucester¬ 
shire, in supplying his own table with the milk, cream, and butter 
of the infected cows, and that neither that gentleman nor his fa¬ 
mily had suffered in the slightest degree from partaking of them as 
the articles of food. 
“ Sir Samuel Crompton stated the great personal pains that, to 
his own knowledge, had been taken by the noble duke and the 
committee, in examining into the facts connected with this subject. 
Mr. John Ellman was convinced of the infectious nature of the 
complaint, having placed a diseased cow in the same shed with 
sheep, the latter immediately taking the disorder. 
“ Mr. Webb Hall was fully assured that the disease was dis¬ 
tinctly contagious. 
“ The Rev. Mr, Smythies remarked that the butter-cup gene¬ 
rally grew on alluvial land; and as this usually occurred on the 
banks of rivers, to plough up such pasture would be to expose it 
to the chance of having its soil washed down, from the loosened 
state to which it would be brought under such circumstances. 
Mr. Childers called Dr. Whitlaw’s attention to the fact, that 
one of this year’s prizes had been proposed for the purpose of ob¬ 
taining information on the subject of weeds in meadows. 
Mr. Carleton Smythies remarked, that the best pastures always 
contained the greatest number of butter-cups. 
“ The Rev. W. L. Rham would take that opportunity of inform¬ 
ing the meeting of a curious fact connected with this disease, which 
had been recently communicated to him by a correspondent in 
Germany. It seemed that the complaint had existed in that coun¬ 
try for some time, and the farmers regarded it not only as of the 
most infectious and contagious nature, but as of a character too 
hopeless to admit of cure; and they had, therefore, resorted to the 
qualifying remedy of inoculation, or, as he might truly term it, 
vaccination; and applied the saliva of the diseased cows to the 
mouths of the rest of the herd, thereby communicating the disorder 
to them in a mild form, and preventing them from taking it with 
its natural and severe consequences—the whole of the flock in 
every case escaping. 
“ Earl Spencer was happy to say that he had in his own expe¬ 
rience had only three cases of the disease; but that he had found 
VOL. XIII. 3 R 
