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SCOTTISH METROPOLITAN VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 305 
tese veterinary surgeon, ably contested the validity of the con¬ 
clusion arrived at by Willems. G-amgee further records that in 
1854 a commission was appointed by the French Government to 
make investigations into the subject, and that, although they in 
part confirmed Eiviglio’s unfavorable opinions, they, from the 
incompleteness of their experiments, recommended a further 
trial of it. Gamgee himself, at this date (1862), was evidently 
violently opposed to it; for we find him say, “ The practice of 
inoculation is one which I have to condemn from experience,” 
and that any good which follows its adoption is such as would 
follow the use of setons, and is obtained at the cost of a certain 
percentage of deaths, and cases of gangrene of the tail. Again, 
on the same subject, he says, “ The all-important question, Is 
inoculation of service ? has been solved, for the Belgian and 
French commissions, Eiviglio’s, Simond’s, and Hering’s obser¬ 
vations, with those of many more (added, I presume, to his own 
experience), prove that, while a certain degree of preservative in¬ 
fluence is derived by the process of inoculation, it does not arrest 
the progress of disease.” 
I desire you, gentlemen, to note that opinion, published by 
Mr. Gamgee in 1862, for further on I shall be able to show you 
how completely it has been upset. 
Holding the opinion he did in 1862, it appeared strange to me 
that he should, in company with Hering, another dissentient, at 
the first International Veterinary Congress, held in Hamburg in 
the following year, 1863, be a party to a resolution which was 
passed to the effect that the inoculation of cattle should be made 
compulsory. At that Congress, there were present, in addition 
to Gamgee and Hering, already mentioned, Professors Gerlach 
and Hertwig, of Berlin, Boll, of Vienna, JSTicklas, of Munich, 
and some others equally eminent, and it is worthy of note that 
no opposition was raised to the resolution. It may had been that 
they did not think it worth while, believing in the then un¬ 
satisfactory results of inoculation being sufficient to deter any 
Government from giving effect to the resolution, but it may also 
have been that their minds were not fully made up—that, in 
short, while sensible that in inoculation there existed a beneficial 
result, it was not such as they would require to have before 
subscribing fully to it. Whether or not the Continental veteri¬ 
nary mind is any clearer on the subject now, I cannot tell you. 
Gentlemen, I am afraid it is not, else we would have heard more 
about it. 
In this country, then as now, I believe I am correct in stating 
that the veterinary profession were, and now are, against the 
practice, at least all with the exception of a very very few—so 
few that they may be counted on the five fingers. I have been 
particular in noting the state of the veterinary mind at that 
time, because from my own experience I am fully convinced that 
the adverse verdict arose from the misapplication—I would use 
a stronger term, “ ignorance ”—of the true method of inocula* 
