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L. MC LEAN. 
will be at once apparent that, if the slaughtering process is to be 
adopted, not only must the acutely affected animals be destroyed 
but also all those who have cohabited with them, and that , on the 
premises they occupy ; but further, we find that a majority of the 
cow stables in this city are frame buildings, having wooden 
floors, many in a decayed condition, which, with the surface soil, 
have become thoroughly saturated with the germs of the disease; 
hence they are beyond the power of disinfection, and to 
thoroughly stamp out the disease by this process would neces¬ 
sarily entail the entire destruction of the various stables as well 
as their occupants. 
So many of these stables being known centres of contagion, 
who is prepared to pay this enormous outlay ? As I consider 
that, in this city anything short of this would be a waste of 
money, especially seeing that it would at the same time com¬ 
pletely paralyze this branch of business. In every place where 
the disease has obtained such a stronghold, and the centres of 
contagion are so numerous as here, the slaughtering process has 
proved a practical failure. 
The second course left to you, that of inoculation, has, for at 
least eighteen years, been practiced in a rude form by the indi¬ 
vidual cow owners of this city, and I believe with results satis¬ 
factory to them. Inoculation, although surrounded with many 
difficulties and some objections, is now admitted to be an effec¬ 
tual prophylactic measure, and is advocated by such men as Flem¬ 
ing of England, Willems of Belgium, Mitchell of Australia, and 
Law of Cornell University. And its practical benefits have been 
proved beyond a doubt by Bntherford of Edinburgh, who has in 
that city, during the last few years, successfully operated upon 
upwards of 4,000 milk cows, and thus, after the slaughtering 
process had proved a failure, has succeeded virtually in clearing 
the Scotch metropolis of this pest, that had defied all other efforts 
for thirty years. It would seem to me that where the disease 
has existed so long as it has in this city, that this course is much 
the preferable one, not only from a scientific point of view, but 
also from that of economy. Our own experience as shown by 
my report to you in October, substantiates this assertion, and I 
have since then inoculated a considerable number with equally 
