656 
ED. NOCARD. 
Slaughter is justified by this fact, that most of the contagious 
diseases are principally spread by contact with the sick. When 
it is dead the danger is much less. There are instances where 
the cadaver is, on the contrary, more dangerous than the living 
animal ; because it is after death that it contains more germs of 
the disease. The proverb “dead the beast, dead the virus,” is 
not always true. The cadaver then must be destroyed as quickly 
and as completely as possible. When it is not easy to obtain a 
rapid way of destruction, one must be satisfied with burying; 
but it is indicated to throw the cadaver into special places, true 
cemeteries for animals, which shall be surrounded by walls or 
close fences and whose entrance shall be strictly 'forbidden to 
other animals. Experience has shown that germs are not ah 
ways destroyed by burying, and that even after a deep burying 
it often happens that those germs are brought back on the sur¬ 
face of the earth by earthworms which come and deposit them 
with their faeces. 
Each town ought to have such a cemetery if other more 
powerful means of destruction are not possible. Evidently it 
would be better to dissolve the cadaver in sulphur and use the 
remains for fertilizing purposes. This will be one of the pro¬ 
gresses of the future ! 
Isolation or slaughter of the sick constitute theoretically the 
necessary and sufficient measure to prevent the spread of a dis¬ 
ease. Yes, it is sufficient, providing the effusion is recognized 
early enough, and that the animal has not communicated it to 
its neighbors. But it is very rare that the diagnosis is made 
at the start, before contamination has occurred, and the result 
is that the sanitary measures cannot relate only to those affected, 
but also to those which may have already taken the germ of 
the affection. It is absolutely necessary to keep them isolated, 
sometimes quarantined ; at any rate, prevent their sale ; it is by 
them, indeed, that most often new centres of infection are 
formed in the stables, in the barns where the hazards of the 
sale bring them. They are so much more dangerous that free 
from any visible symptoms they are placed without fear among 
