GLASGOW COLLjEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 831 
similar return on the Saturday of every week, until the 
disease has disappeared” 
It is particularly to be observed, that the advisability of 
the Act only now passed has repeatedly been urged upon the 
authorities by eminent veterinary surgeons, and in the intro¬ 
ductory address delivered here in November, 1866, Professor 
McCall said, The cattle plague has drained the pockets of 
farmers and dairymen of thousands sterling, hut, thank 
Providence, we are now free of the disease in this country. 
Pleuropneumonia has drained our pockets of millions of 
pounds, and she is still in our midst, the great enemy of our 
stock. And why is it so? Can nothing be done for it? 
Yes, much. It is a specific disease, and a disease not 
natural to the British Isles. Kill all foreign fat cattle where 
they first touch our shores, or at the first market in which 
they are exhibited; quarantine all foreign store stock until 
they shall have proven themselves to be sound; inspect our 
markets, excluding all diseased animals; and have our fat 
and store markets apart; inspect our dairies, and only license 
such sheds or byres as are well ventilated and thoroughly 
drained; determine the number of animals to be kept by the 
cubic and superficial capacity of the byre ; isolate all infected 
herds or dairies where pleuropneumonia exist, treating the 
diseased and burying the dead; inspect all public convey¬ 
ances used in the transit of live stock; regulate the number 
of cattle, under any circumstances, carried by steamers, pay¬ 
ing special attention to the ventilation and standing space. 
“ Use the means I have indicated, and other means which 
the plague has taught us to be of benefit in controlling con¬ 
tagious diseases, and if the contagious pleuropneumonia of 
cattle now killing our stock wholesale is not thereby com¬ 
pletely extinguished, ^ stamped out,’ its operations will be so 
curtailed that the losses resulting to stock-holders from the 
presence of the disease will sit lightly upon their shoulders. 
The chief, nay, almost the sole enemy to the health and 
lives of cattle within byres, is epizootic pleuro-pneumonia. 
This so-called pleuropneumonia is a highly contagious 
febrile disease, and in my experience contagious to that 
extent, that the ventilation, the drainage, and other condi¬ 
tions of the byres have little influence in arresting the on¬ 
ward march of the disease. Like rinderpest, once allow 
pleuropneumonia to have a victim within the byre, and few, 
if any, will escape its grasp. Do not mistake me, I am alive 
to the benefits of ventilation, drainage, cleanliness, and other 
hygienic conditions, which we well know assist in maintain¬ 
ing the standard of health. But I repeat, drain, ventilate 
XLii. ’ 57 
