748 TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
During also the time which the experiment was continued 
for the confirmation of its decision on this single case—the 
commission inoculated with the softer tissue of the spleen., 
introduced under the skin, three healthy sheep; but this 
experiment was negative, which has never been the case 
when the inoculation was made with the spleen of sheep 
which had undoubtedly died of splenic apoplexy. The com¬ 
mission, therefore, considered the fact as doubtful.” This 
experiment evidently proves the absence of the contagious 
character of the malady by a volatile virus. This is, likewise, 
the opinion of M. Moisant, who concludes as follows:—“ At 
the present time, direct experiments have failed to establish 
the contagious character by the volatile virus.” He then 
quotes several remarks in support of this opinion, but he has 
lost sight of one important point, and has not informed us 
whether this sheepfold, which had been saturated with the 
infection in 1858, had received healthy sheep since that time, 
and whether they had contracted the disease M. Moisant 
declares strongly against the conclusions of MM. Roger and 
Joseph ; but whose fault is it that they were so condemned? 
In 1847 a local committee made some experiments, and 
believed that it had made an important discovery, and in 
eager haste, on its own authority, gave to the sang de rate 
a contagious character. The magistrates, duly informed, 
inscribed the malady amongst the number of those which 
came under the sanitary laws, and hence the conviction by 
the correctional tribunal of the delinquents. If M. Moisant 
and his colleagues of the association had acted with 
less precipitation, and if, by means of the press, they 
had given an opportunity to those practitioners who had 
observed the malady to publish the results of their expe¬ 
rience, there is no doubt but the question would soon have 
been decided, and we have every reason to suppose that the 
authorities would have seen nothing wrong in the displace¬ 
ment of the flocks of MM. Roger and Joseph. 
P.S.—On the 25th December I addressed this letter to M. 
Leblanc. Since that time the Clinic has published the 
articles of MM. Moisant, Garreau, and Darreau. There 
exists at the bottom of this question a misunderstanding, 
which can only be removed by practically investigating the 
subject de novo . If the doctrine of contagion has obtained 
some partisans, it is because the results of the experimental 
inoculations were misinterpreted, and, on the other hand, 
the phenomena of the malady were not sufficiently con¬ 
sidered. If the introduction under the skin of a portion of 
