552 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
playing. I have used very often this same sort of treatment. 1 
do not apprehend much if any danger from its use, if used in time. 
Animals do not die from the use of the trocar, but rather from 
the effect of the distended condition and the shock upon the 
system. In twenty cases that I have punctured, I have only lost 
two, and I am satisfied that in those cases I put off puncturing 
until too late. I am certain that a small long trocar with long 
tapering point and cutting edges kept scrupulously clean , and 
used in time, is more agreeable to the horse and more effectual 
than the drenching horn and nauseating medicines. 
I am of the opinion that many cases are lost from death caused 
by simple distention. As often, perhaps, as from inflammation. 
Certainly, simple distention may be relieved by the trocar, and I 
think that succeeding inflammation is not nearly so apt to follow. 
Geo. C. Faville, D.Y.M. 
Ft. Collins, Colo., Feb. 20th, 1885. 
INOCULATION IN CONTAGIOUS PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 
Editor American Veterinary Review : 
In the preliminary report made by members of the Bureau of 
Animal Industry to the Commissioner of Agriculture, in their 
investigations and experiments, we are informed that “ The ex¬ 
periments relating to the contagiousness of pleuro-pneumonia as 
found in the stables inspected, which are conducted at the station 
on Barren Island, have developed many important facts,” and 
goes further to show, or at least lead any one to suppose, that the 
developments are simply as to the contagiousness of the disease. 
I think that part of the question lias been long settled by many 
costly accidental experiments, and any further experiments as to 
the contagion would, to veterinarians at least, appear to be time 
and money thrown away. I should like to see the Bureau turn 
its attention to something new in the way of experiments; say, 
preventive measures. Inoculation is one well worthy their atten¬ 
tion. Though I am free to admit that I have little or no faith 
in the protective value of inoculation, and the more I look into 
the question, the more skeptical I get, yet am open to conviction, 
