FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE, 
623 
solve. Much as we know about the laws of contagion, there 
are difficulties in the way of understanding their operation in 
all cases in which foot-and-mouth disease is manifested. No 
one can doubt, who has had experience of the malady, that, 
like the materies morbi of cattle plague, the infecting matter of 
“ foot-and-mouth disease” can be indirectly carried to healthy 
cattle, with almost a positive certainty of affecting them ; but 
knowledge of this kind frequently fails to account for many 
of the outbreaks, as well as for the great distances which lie 
between the site of the disease and its fresh victims of attack. 
We have again and again known cattle to become affected 
which were isolated as completely as possibly could be sup¬ 
posed, and when too it could not be ascertained that any cases 
of the disease existed within a distance of many miles of the 
place. It is facts of this kind, among many others equally per¬ 
plexing, that throw doubts upon the stamping-out process 
being effectual for the complete extermination of the malady, 
to say nothing of the certainty of the re-introduction of the 
materies morbi from other countries from time to time. 
Besides this, it should never be lost sight of that in adopting 
whatever course we may to rid the country of foot-and-mouth 
disease, the malady was equally as virulent and as wide¬ 
spread in England before foreign cattle were permitted to 
be imported, as it has been at any time since. 
Under these circumstances we shall watch with much 
interest the doings of our Australian brethren. From the 
Victorian Economist , June 14th, just to hand, we learn that 
the new ministry of the colony have appointed a Commis¬ 
sion and issued orders, under an Act which was only passed 
on the 11th of June, for the “ instant inspection, careful inves¬ 
tigation, and destruction of the infected animals, as well as of 
all that have come in contact with them.” 
The Commission, it seems, has gone to work in earnest, as 
they have not only slaughtered the cattle, but placed the farms 
on which they were found in quarantine for six months, and 
disinfected every person and thing leaving the locality. The 
Economist praises these measures, but demands that they 
shall be supplemented by the “ slaughter of animals coming 
from infected countries at the place of landing.” 
Will stamping-out succeed? and if so, for how long? In 
our own country there has been some talk of sending a memo¬ 
rial to the Privy Council to close all fairs and markets for six 
weeks; but it is scarcely probable that the cattle trade will 
submit to such an interference, especially as the benefit aris¬ 
ing from such a measure is not at all likely to be permanent. 
