627 
THE VETERINARIAN, SEPTEMBER 2, 1872. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.—C icero, 
CATTLE PLAGUE. 
As far as danger resulting from the recent importation of 
plague-infected cattle is concerned, we may consider ourselves 
safe. The longest period of incubation of the disease has 
passed nearly three times over since the last cargo of diseased 
beasts was landed on our shores. Probably some of the car¬ 
cases, or portions of them, which were consigned to the deep, 
may yet he washed on the coast somewhere, but we confess 
that we do not entertain any grave apprehension on that 
account. Setting aside the effects of sea water in neutralizing 
the virus, a half decomposed ox is not likely to be allowed to 
remain long enough above ground to do any harm ; and as to 
the communication of the poison by the agency of the atmo¬ 
sphere, after having seen animals standing for months within 
less than a furlong of the dead and dying of cattle plague, 
without being affected, we are not likely to become converts 
to the atmospheric theory of infection. Nevertheless, it is 
important to effectually dispose of diseased carcases, and this 
can only he done when certain facilities are afforded for burial 
or for boiling them at a high temperature. Throwing animals 
overboard is admitted to be the least satisfactory way of 
getting rid of them permanently, but when they are not per¬ 
mitted to land, it is difficult to devise any other method. 
Two years ago, when cattle plague was raging at Lander- 
mann, the authorities on one occasion found themselves with 
something like seven hundred carcases of cattle on their hands, 
with no means of burying them. Under these awkward cir¬ 
cumstances, they hit upon the expedient of packing them in 
two old vessels, sending these out five and twenty leagues to 
sea and scuttling them. The ships did, it seems, what the 
lighters at Hull refused to do, sink ; yet, notwithstanding the 
success of the scuttling and the distance from shore, some 
thirty of the carcases were washed up and stranded; but we 
