542 
PROFESSOR WALLEY. 
PLEURO-PNEUMONIA, 
A Paper read before the Royal Scottish Veterinary Society. 
. By Professor Wallry. 
Of late we have witnessed a remarkable recrudescence in 
the newspaper agitation as to pleuro-pneumonia, some of these 
organs, in fact, raising the subject to the dignity of a crisis ; 
and while this agitation has largely arisen in consequence of 
the publication of reports by the various local authorities, of 
the bill of costs connected with the carrying out of the pro¬ 
visions of the Slaughter Order, I am afraid very much of it 
has had a selfish origin, and has been entered upon for such 
purely selfish purposes as a desire for fame, or, on the part of 
some, from a desire to pose as authorities on the question. 
But while such have been the motives of some of those who 
have engaged in the controversy, there are others whose sole 
object has been the harmless one of airing a particular hobby. 
Again, there are others—“ croaking pessimists ” shall I call 
them?—who have endeavored to show that some prophecy 
they may have given utterance to, to the effect “ that whole¬ 
sale slaughter would never eradicate the disease,” has been 
proved to have been correct by the fact that the measures now 
in force have failed to exterminate a malady which has been 
in our midst for upwards of half a century in the short space 
of eighteen months. Even the old cries of spontaneous origin 
and of “ the cure of pleuro-pneumonia ” have been revived ; and 
the further statement is made that the Slaughter Order has 
encouraged concealment, and has neither added anything to 
our knowledge of the nature of the affection or of the means 
of dealing with it—matters which some propose to elucidate 
by means of experimentation. There are some correspond¬ 
ents, too, who still blame the large cities, as London, Edin¬ 
burgh, and Dublin, for spreading the disease. 
The Slaughter Order. 
Having briefly reviewed this correspondence, I propose in 
the next place to deal in seriatim with the various statements 
and assertions to which I have directed your attention, and 
