460 TliOtJGHTS ON tLEURO-PNEUMONIA IN CATTLE. 
causes, nature, and treatment of the disease, some attributing 
it to one cause, and others again to another; some advocating 
one mode of treatment, and others another. From all this 
1 have formed the following opinion, and come to the 
conclusion that no known mode of management or plan of 
ventilation is a full protection against it, and that inoculation, 
as a preventive, is utterly useless. This is abundantly proved 
in Professor Simonds* two elaborate and thoroughly scientific 
reports upon the subject, made twelve years ago, and which he 
now confirms as it being of no more use than a seton, and as 
not having one scientific leg to stand upon as a preventive of 
pleuroh The experience of inoculation in our Australian 
dependencies are exactly the same. I am led also to the 
conclusion that homoeopathy and hydropathy are of no avail; 
that bloodletting, counter-irritation, purgatives, sedatives, or 
narcotic medicine, as a means of cure, have proved to have little 
or no influence in combating this disease. We find some few 
cases recover under the most opposite methods of treatment, 
but I think the candid and enlightened mind will not arro¬ 
gate wholly to himself the cure, but would rather say as our 
respected ex-president, Mr. Lawson, very modestly and, as I 
thought, very wisely, said at our last meeting, “ To my utter as¬ 
tonishment, they every one of them got better, but whether it 
was due to my treatment or not I am not prepared to say.” I 
am come to the conclusion also that all our notions about 
ventilation are at fault; they are entirely inapplicable and, 
utterly inefficient as a preventive of pleuro-pneumonia in 
cattle. In respect to it being contagious, is a question not 
yet clearly established. We see situated upon yonder high 
land a dairy which no expense has been spared to render every¬ 
thing that is likely to contribute to and ensure health, and 
where we consequently expect we must have an immunity from 
disease. We see that the sweet fresh breath of Heaven plays 
about it and sweeps freely through the place; the ventilating 
shaft with the ingress upon the ground surface, and the tem¬ 
perature, always scrupulously attended to. In this place 
there are no drains, no “ grids,” nor manure-heaps, permitted 
to accumulate, but in every department cleanliness, regularity, 
and care, are diligently and rigorously persisted in, and yet 
what are the results? The morbific influence, the fell destroyer, 
has taken up its abode there, with only limited periods of 
absence, and would appear to be perfectly irrepressible by any 
and every known human agency. We see (it may be) at the 
very next farm, where no pretensions whatever to care or clean¬ 
liness are observed, where the hovel is so low that you cannot 
stand upright in it, and the walls and top of the building 
