SMALLPOX AMONG SHEEP IN WILTSHIRE. 735 
however, known that several scattered cases of diphtheria had 
occurred in various inland districts of England in 1848 and 
1849; that in the winter of 1849-50 the disease prevailed to 
a most serious and fatal extent in Haverfordwest, in Pem¬ 
brokeshire, and that at least three other local outbreaks at 
different intervals of time preceded the general outbreak.* 
Again, and touching more closely on our present subject, 
notwithstanding the stringent sanitary police exercised in 
France over domestic animals suffering from contagious 
diseases, this has neither prevented the extension at different 
periods, nor terminated the ravages, nor saved any of the 
great sheep districts of France from the ravages of smallpox. 
This disease has now prevailed as an epizootic, now as an 
enzootic; now it has infected the flocks of one district, now 
of another; now it has broken out in a comparatively mild, 
now in a malignant form, in spite of the best conceived and 
most ably governed sanitary police measures. Not until the 
disease has become painfully manifest, indeed, could a sani¬ 
tary police be of any avail, and then chiefly in restraining 
somewhat the sale of plainly diseased animals, or of the 
animals from infected flocks, or of their flesh as food. Indeed, 
if it be difficult to exercise a strict and trustworthy restrictive 
observation over disease in man, how much more so will this 
be the case over numerous and vast flocks, governed, too com¬ 
monly, by ignorant herdsmen ? 
Now, we would not have it thought that we conclude, 
therefore, that the restrictive efforts of a sanitary police in the 
prevention of epidemic or epizootic disease are of little utility. 
Far from it. It is of the greatest importance, for example, 
to prevent the sale or distribution from one district to another 
of diseased animals or diseased flesh; this is unquestionable. 
But the argument is, that this alone is not to be depended 
upon; it is, indeed, utterly untrustworthy for the prevention 
of the spread of disease, however contagious, and for the pro¬ 
tection of a healthy district. The same remarks hold true, in 
a great degree, of the internal police of flocks and herds when 
affected by a contagious disease. While separation and iso¬ 
lation of the affected animals may be pursued with great suc¬ 
cess in restraining the propagation of the disease in small flocks, 
favorably situated for the experiment; in large flocks, so 
numerous as to render the daily inspection of the individual 
animals a matter of almost impossibility, or which are kept on 
lands which do not permit of satisfactory segregation and 
isolation, these measures have proved of little or no avail. 
* See Mr. Radcliffe, “ On the Recent Epidemic of Diphtheria. 55 (‘ Lancet, 5 
July 12th, 1862, p.33.) 
