680 SYNOPSIS OP VETERINARY CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
results the conclusion that inoculation has a preservative 
virtue sure to fortify the organism of the ox against that 
formidable scourge—pleuro-pneumonia. 
Before recounting the number of facts observed in different 
parts of the world, I feel I ought to answer one objection 
always advanced by the opponents of inoculation. “ The 
disappearance of pleuro-pneumonia from sheds must not be 
attributed to inoculation, for we often see that the disease 
suddenly becomes arrested as well in establishments where 
inoculation has been performed as in those where it has 
not, after making one, two, or three victims only. Besides, 
pleuro-pneumonia has not the same virulence as formerly, 
being now on the decrease.” All observation shows us that 
this objection is baseless. When once pleuro-pneumonia 
has been introduced into a herd by contact with a sick 
animal, it does not lose its intensity, and, instead of stopping 
after it has attacked two or three beasts, destroys 25 to 30 
per cent, of them, and still more, according to the French 
Official Scientific Commission, which rates at 80 per cent, the 
loss of animals exposed to contagion. “ When the disease 
ceases, after having made two or three victims, we may well 
ask whether we really., have to do with pleuro-pneumonia 
contagiosa.” “ All the brewers of Hasselt have proved this. 
If sometimes, for some reason, any of them has ceased the 
practice of inoculation pleuro-pneumonia has returned with 
the same intensity as formerly, and the number of its 
victims has been very considerable.” “ The disappearance of 
pleuro-pneumonia depends so little upon chance, on a caprice 
of nature, that in sheds where inoculated animals are mixed 
with uninoculated, and placed in absolutely the same con¬ 
ditions, the contagion having been once introduced amongst 
them, we can prove a constant relation of cause with effect, 
that is to say, that the inoculated resist the contagion, but the 
uninoculated succumb.” 
M. Willems next proceeds to the enumeration of his 
“ facts.” As far as France is concerned, he quotes the 
views of the Governmental Commission of that country, 
Inoculation with the liquid obtained from the lungs of an 
animal affected with pleuro-pneumonia has a prophylactic 
value. It endows the organism of the majority of the 
animals thus operated on with an immunity from the con¬ 
tagion of lung disease, which lasts for an indefinite time.” 
And strengthens his position by the opinions of MM. Bouley, 
Sanson, Prince, Saint-Cyr, Mathieu, Viseur, Senglen, 
Boulay d’Avesnes, and many others. His paper then con¬ 
tinues as follows: 
