113 
THE VETERINARIAN, FEBRUARY 1, 1872. 
No quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid vori non audeat.— Cicero, 
PROTECTION AGAINST EOREIGN CATTLE PLAGUES. 
Those who are charged with the carrying out of the 
regulations which are intended to prevent the introduction 
of infectious diseases from abroad, labour under the serious 
disadvantage of being exposed to all sorts of misrepresenta¬ 
tion without having the opportunity to explain or defend 
their actions. British farmers read all the reports which from 
time to time obtain currency respecting the dangers which 
home stock incur, owing to the exceedingly lax restric- 
, tions upon the importation and movement of foreign animals, 
but they rarely if ever pore over a copy of the ‘ Gazette* for the 
purpose of ascertaining what those regulations are of which 
complaint is made. 
A positive though incomplete and altogether garbled 
account of the treatment to which a certain cargo of 
foreign cattle had been submitted at once attracts atten¬ 
tion ; all the possible evils which may arise from letting 
these prolific centres of infection loose are immediately 
patent to the reader’s mind; every romantic description of 
the unsanitary state of cattle on the continent is accepted 
without question •, and the final result is the establishment 
of a conviction that the home producer is hardly dealt with, 
while every facility is given to the foreigner to introduce, in 
the name of free trade, destructive diseases into this country. 
Often we have had to controvert in these pages the reckless 
statements of individuals who gave forth their crude views 
based on insufficient knowledge of the circumstances to 
which they referred. In all charity we have usually given 
those persons credit for good intentions, but we are rapidly 
drifting into a state of doubt on this point. During 
the last year or two so many false alarms have emanated 
evidently from the same source, that we are almost com¬ 
pelled to suspect the ignorance of the facts to be some- 
