394 
EDITORIAL. 
that these experiments were of no value to the inquiry presented. Too many 
evidences exist which seem to prove this dangerous condition of ‘ recovered 
cases.’ ” 
Shades of Hippocrates! Mr. Editor. “ Seem”—is this the best you can do? 
Can’t you give us one little fact ? But perhaps you will tell us how Pasteur 
arrived at his great results; how Jenner immortalized himself ; how preventive 
inoculation against contagious pleuro-pneumonia was first understood, but by a 
carefully conducted process of experiments. Can you name any other mode or 
method of procedure that will furnish as positive and reliable results? Experi¬ 
ment is a great magic wand wielded by the student of morbid pathology, to extri¬ 
cate from the depths of oblivion those things the medical fraternity are so eager 
to call science. Deprive him of this, and you reduce him to the condition of a 
water-logged ship on a boisterous sea. Again, he tries to prop a weak position 
by citing a single English veterinarian as follows : 
“The lot of cattle in which the disease first appeared was bought in April, 
1884, and remained apparently healthy up to July of this year (1885); the disease 
was then developed, and in so violent a form that the fisst animal died on the 
seventh day. This rapid death, not usual in this disease, was explained by the 
post-mortem examination, which revealed the disease in two forms or stages, 
namely : recent acute disease, and old encysted cases. The latter had lain dor¬ 
mant for fifteen months.” 
Inasmuch as the author of the quotation refers to this as one of a number of 
outbreaks , it serves nothing. If these cases had a second attack, which we do not 
believe, there is just as good reason for believing they contracted the malady 
from extrinsic or from intrinsic causes. We do not believe an animal that has 
passed through an attack and recovered will ever have another. If so, what be¬ 
comes of preventive inoculation ? When a lung is once diseased, it is a well- 
known fact that it is ever afterward susceptible to sporadic influences, and the 
veterinarian simply mistook a case of ordinary sporadic pneumonia for something 
else. 
Again, he writes: 
“ To conclude, we cannot help believing that such assertions as the one made 
by the well-qualified veterinary editor of Turf\ Field and Farm, are most unfor¬ 
tunate. There are already sufficient real difficulties in the way of the important 
work undertaken for the eradication of the disease from the country, without 
introducing others, without validity or value, which will not stand the test of 
careful inquiry, which have been proved erroneous, and which at best, if un¬ 
doubtedly correct, would, after all, simply save the lives of a few poor old 
broken-down animals, useless in life, and worthless even after death.” 
Mr. Editor, do not waste time in useless fretting, but manfully make another 
attempt to secure that which seems so easy , but which you have so signally failed 
in doing this time, and thus undo the wrong we have inflicted. Does it not occur 
to you that you may be the sensationalist in this case and not I ? The veterinar¬ 
ian is looked upon as a preserver and not a destroyer of life. The knacker can 
do that even better, and it conforms to his calling. This is not a question of 
dollars. An animal is not always preserved for its intrinsic value alone, and 
when the veterinarian informs his employer that we can kill but cure his case, he 
