IRISH CATTLE AND DISEASE. 
349 
as they were in similar experiments which were made many 
years ago in our own investigations. 
A second object was kept in view by the Agricultural Society 
—the testing of the value of inoculation as a preventive of 
the natural attack. In this respect Dr. Burdon Sanderson’s 
experiments are favorable, hut he admits that they have not 
been sufficiently extensive to justify any sweeping conclu¬ 
sion, and he suggests that further inquiry is necessary in 
this direction to complete the investigation, which he re¬ 
grets was prematurely arrested by the recent legislation. 
The fact is that under present circumstances, healthy 
animals cannot be moved into an infected place, but it must 
be remembered that an infected place includes a large num¬ 
ber of cattle which are free from disease, but are necessarily 
shut up for at least fifty-six days. Under such circumstances 
it would appear that every facility is offered for testing the 
value of inoculation on a large scale, and if the plan of 
operation which Dr. Burdon Sanderson advocates, that of 
venous injection, be as free from risk as it has been in his 
and Mr. Duguid’s hands, the value of the alleged preventive 
might be effectually tested without cost or danger. 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
IRISH CATTLE AND DISEASE. 
From a parliamentary return moved for by Mr. Egerton 
Hubbard, it appears that the* number of cattle in Ireland in 
the year 1877 was 3,996*027; of sheep, 3,989,178; and of 
swine, 1,467,999. The numbers of cattle and sheep were 
below those of the four previous years, each of which showed 
a decrease as compared with its predecessor; whilst the num¬ 
ber of swine exhibited in each of the years a substantial in¬ 
crease. The number of cattle exported in 1877 was 649,873 ; 
of sheep, 631,159; and of swine, 585,427. The cattle ex¬ 
port showed a decline when compared with 1873 or 1876; 
the export of sheep was in excess of the export in 1873, but 
lower than in either of the three following years; but the ex¬ 
port of swine showed a large increase over the numbers in 
either of the four previous years. As compared with the 
total export in 1873 this increase was 221,056. In 1875, 379 
animals were seized or detained on account of being affected 
with disease, chiefly foot-and-mouth disease, but in 1877 the 
seizures or detentions had diminished to 164, 106 of which 
were sheep affected with scab and 56 swine with foot-and- 
mouth disease. In the year 1877 pleuro-pneumonia was 
