730 
SMALLPOX AMONG SHEEP IN WILTSHIRE. 
by no means difficult of diagnosis-, even by the uninitiated. 
Hence it is far from improbable that sporadic smallpox may 
have occurred from time to time among our flocks, although 
not coming under the notice of a qualified veterinary prac¬ 
titioner. 
Again, the possibility of infection from a foreign source is 
not entirely shut out, notwithstanding that since the outbreak 
of 1847-50 an inspection of all foreign sheep landed in Eng¬ 
land has been enforced. Although no instance of the disease 
has been reported from any of our ports, it is not to be for¬ 
gotten that there are no means of ascertaining from what dis¬ 
tricts of the continent the sheep originally come, that is to 
say, whether from infected or healthy districts. Further, 
only such sheep are stopped as exhibit manifest tokens of ill- 
health. But, as in the first outbreak, the earliest indications 
of sickness may not be shown until a fortnight or three weeks 
after landing. Therefore the practicability of the disease 
having been casually introduced in this fashion is not to be 
set aside without special inquiry. 
It may be urged, however, that in either case the difficulty 
of tracing the outbreak in Mr. Parry’s flock to communi¬ 
cation would not be in the least lessened from the peculiar 
circumstances and isolated conditions of the flocks. But a 
very serious doubt has been cast upon the completeness of 
this isolation by Principal Gamgee, of the New Veterinary 
College, Edinburgh. He avers,* from personal inquiry, that 
there is a free communication between different parts of the 
adjoining country and the Downs of Wiltshire. (i There is,” 
he states, “a drift along the celebrated Wansdyke which has 
been repeatedly the cause of the spread of contagious diseases 
from affected cattle and sheep traversing the Downs in order 
to avoid the payment of tolls on the high road. The public 
may rest assured (he adds) that there is no ground at all for 
the belief that smallpox could break out in Wiltshire spon¬ 
taneously.” 
Apart from the doubts suggested by the details them¬ 
selves and Mr. Gamgee’s statements, there are others, arising 
out of the known or presumed phenomena of contagious 
diseases, which cannot be altogether ignored. The doctrines 
of the extreme school of contagionists (if we may so term the 
holders of these opinions) have been so admirably summed 
up in the columns of a contemporary,t in reference to this 
outbreak of smallpox, that we cannot do better than cite them 
as there expressed. Writing of the theory of spontaneous 
origin of the outbreak, it is said— 
* e Times/ September 10th. 
f ‘ Social Science Review/ August 16th, 1862. 
