TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 749 
putrefied spleen does in some cases, but not always, deter¬ 
mine an 'attack of the malady in healthy sheep, this is not a 
sufficient reason to conclude that it is contagious. The 
results obtained under these circumstances are to be com¬ 
pared to those which would be produced by the inoculation 
of any other putrid or gangrenous matter. The inoculation, 
therefore, can only have a relative value. It is more essential 
to study the morbid characters of the sang de rate. Of such 
cases as manifest themselves without provocation, and which 
follow the immutable laws of nature, M. Garreau has given 
an account in the Recueil of February, 1862, and of expe¬ 
riments made at Nogent-le-Routrou, the results of which 
have their proper value, but it is to be regretted that the autop¬ 
sies could not always be made sooner after death. As to the 
inoculations, it is surprising that there were a great number 
of the animals which resisted the truly septic poison. For 
those who have studied the malady on the spot there are two 
orders of facts, the importance of which have escaped the par¬ 
tisans of contagion, viz.—First, the rarity of the malady in 
sucking lambs. All observers have verified that the malady 
affects, principally, animals from one to three years old, and 
that it is rare in those lambs which receive mixed nutriment 
(milk and fodder) ; and, finally, that it is almost unknown to 
those who live exclusively on the milk of their mothers. Tender 
age, delicate constitution, cohabitation, incessant contact, ex¬ 
clusive nutrition by the milk of the mother, perhaps already 
affected with the malady, all these unfavorable conditions unite 
to threaten the lambs with this plague, and yet they escape. 
What can be concluded from this salient peculiarity, except 
that there exists no more fixed virus than miasmatic infec¬ 
tion ? Second, the beneficial effects of emigration. Every 
one agrees that, in the great majority of cases, the epizootic 
is stopped by emigration, as if by enchantment. How can 
this fact be explained, and what is the conclusion to be drawn 
from it? In the same manner as those charbonous affections, 
of which the sang de rate is only a variety, it breaks out every 
year, at about the same time, with more or less virulence, in 
certain defined districts ; the determining causes which give 
rise to it being specific, and altogether inherent to the locali¬ 
ties. By the emigration of the flock the malady sponta¬ 
neously ceases, provided, however, that the same causes do 
not exist in the new residence. It is precisely this sponta¬ 
neous cessation of all the symptoms which authorises me in 
denying the contagiousness of splenic apoplexy. 
