508 SCOTTISH METROPOLITAN VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
she tossed about in the gale, with huge seas breaking over her. For four 
days the weather was terrible, and when it is considered that each horse 
had only about 320 cubic feet, the condition of the animals may be 
imagined, especially as the voyage was partly in the tropics. Yet neither 
in this instance, nor yet in any of the others, was glanders produced. 
If we look at glanders from a pathological point of view, we shall find 
that, unless we are ready to make admissions which are entirely opposed 
by facts, we cannot believe in its spontaneous development. The malady 
to which it is most closely allied, perhaps, is human Syphilis. Yet will 
any one assert that this can be spontaneously developed ? Will any 
amount of uncleanliness, overcrowding, bad ventilation, disintegrated 
tissue, or polyuria, produce this horrible disorder ? Go to any medical 
man, show him a hard or Hunterian chancre, and tell him it came of 
itself. What would his answer be? And what should ours be with 
regard to the maladies I have specified ? I leave you to judge. It must 
ever be borne in mind that so long as we consider them capable of spon¬ 
taneous development so long will they be with us, harassing and de¬ 
stroying. It is only when we really believe them to be solely dependent 
upon their contagious principles for their existence, and act accordingly, 
that we can control them. Accept the doctrine that they cannot be 
regenerated when once destroyed, and that their destruction is as pos¬ 
sible as that of injurious plants or animals, and we need not be troubled 
with them for long. Destroy the germs which produce these diseases 
and you have for ever rid the world of them. This is a grand result to 
have attained, even theoretically ; practically, it is quite capable of 
achievement. Sanitary science indicates the course to be pursued. It 
is for enlightened governments to act upon those indications, and for 
veterinarians to carry out the necessary measures faithfully and ener¬ 
getically, until germ-producing diseases shall no longer afflict the 
animal world and rob mankind of pleasure and profit—(applause). 
Principal Walley thought all present would agree in the main with 
what Mr. Fleming had said with reference to contagious diseases, though 
some of his conclusions might be dissented from. Mr. Fleming 
acknowledged that at one time he believed certain diseases could be 
generated de novo. So it was with him (Principal Walley), and to some 
extent he retained that belief, notwithstanding the arguments of his 
friend Mr. Fleming. Pleuro-pneumonia and foot-and-mouth disease 
disease they might say were not spontaneously produced, but in splenic 
apoplexy, for example, they found a disease which originated under such 
circumstances that it was impossible to trace its connection to pre¬ 
existing disease. It broke out in districts far removed from the seat of 
the disease, and under special circumstances of feeding—and sometimes 
feeding alone—which the “ contagion ” theory could not account for, and 
which seemed to indicate that an alteration of the system of feeding 
would have obviated the disease. Another example militating against 
the “contagion ” theory was the outbreak of gonorrhoea in cattle, which 
often appeared among cattle where no trace of the disease formerly 
existed, and where there was no proof that the animals had been in 
contact with infected sorts. The majority of stock-breeders, as they 
were aware, kept bulls specially set apart for their cows ; and they were 
for the most part, he believed, entirely used for service in the owners’ 
herd. Yet every now and again they heard of outbreaks of this kind 
among these cows. They could not say there was a specific virus 
obtained from the progenitor, for it frequently broke out in herds under 
such circumstances as that no argument could induce him to believe 
that it had not generated spontaneously. He thought it was going a 
