EASTERN COUNTIES VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 385 
satisfactory result is obtained from the use of crude carbolic acid 
fumes. I was very much interested in a lecture I heard lately 
delivered by an eminent surgeon in the Polytechnic Institution, 
London. He used carbolic acid vapour, he had a glass retort and 
spirit lamp, and announced it to be the most powerful and certain 
destroyer of germs and infectious fevers known. I have used it in 
several stables with evident advantage. The way I use it is this: 
I pour about a teaspoonful of the crude acid upon some hot (not 
red hot) cinders upon a shove]; if the cinders are too hot the 
acid ignites and a black smoke ascends. This is useless, the acid 
is burnt; in the other case a dense white fume is emitted. I 
carry this into each stall two or three times a week. It would 
seem that this dense white fume shrivels up and destroys the 
contagious germs, devitalises them. As to the second proposition, 
my friend Mr. Tedbar Hopkin, the President of the Lancashire 
Veterinary Medical Association, has been in the habit of giving 
to all the non-affected horses in a stable in which glanders is 
known to exist, or is suspected to exist, hyposulphite of soda one 
or two ounce doses each daily in their water, and in every case, so 
far as he has tested it, it has proved eminently satisfactory. His 
idea of it is this, that if you can saturate the system with a 
medicament that will act as an antidote to the glander poison, 
then each animal will possess an immunity from it and be pro¬ 
tected. I speak it to his honour—he is at this moment institut¬ 
ing experiments with a view to the proving this point. I am sure 
the best thanks and best wishes of the profession will be accorded 
to him. 
I have now brought my subject to a close, and in conclusion I 
may say my only motive is to serve my profession. I do not 
despair, nay I am sanguine, that the time will come when an 
antidote will be found both for glanders, cattle plague, hydro¬ 
phobia, smallpox, typhus, cholera, and the like special diseases. 
It may be found out accidentally, but much more likely by per¬ 
sistent, intelligent study. In urging this I am advocating the 
cause of humanity. Oh ! that I could arouse in you a desire, a 
love for intellectual research, and that such research could attain 
this consummation; it would be the brightest and grandest triumph 
ever achieved by man. 
The subject was treated by the essayist in a scientific manner 
and gave evidence of profound and deep research, in which the 
opinions of the leading scientists of the day were freely reviewed 
and criticised. He showed that the theory of germs producing 
disease had opened up an entirely new field of pathological in¬ 
vestigation, which was of the highest possible interest alike to 
the student of medical and veterinary science; and although he 
admitted we were at present only on the threshold of inquiry as 
to the action of germs, yet, nevertheless, he predicted when our 
knowledge of the subject became more perfect, that most impor¬ 
tant and valuable results would follow, both as to the treatment 
