TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PAPERS. 
399 
which the virulent element is the product of the disease existing 
in the animal; the second, those in which the virus is exhaled in 
the form of vapor or impalpable powder, diffused in the air sur¬ 
rounding the affected subject. In other words, there is contagion 
both by fixed and volatile virus. 
In relation to the first, it certainly is demonstrated in an abso¬ 
lute manner by the experiments just related. In all cases, in¬ 
deed, it consists in a true inoculation, except that instead of being 
done by design and experimentally, it has been the effect of acci¬ 
dent, in a manner occult and often impossible to explain. 
The mechanism by which the inoculation may take place, will 
vary indefinitely and it would be superfluous to examine it all. 
One of the most ordinary is certainly the immediate contact of 
diseased with healthy animals, placed in the same stable, eating 
the same food from the common rack, and in the same feed-box. 
It is effectively comprehensible that in the condition of both ani¬ 
mals, everything is favorably disposed for an inoculation to take 
place, either because they will rub against each other, or because 
the sick will drop upon whatsoever they touch, serosity from the 
pustules, or saliva containing it, or virulent nasal discharge, etc., 
which may come in contact with the lips and nostrils of the heal¬ 
thy. It is extremely probable, not to say certain, that this is the 
most common method of the propagation of the disease, and that 
the so frequent prevalence of the gourmy eruption, almost always 
confluent, around and inside the nostrils and mouth of horses, 
may be mostly due to a special condition of the skin of that re. 
gion. 
To prove this, experimental results, more or less significant, 
might be considered. When a virgin subject has been inoculated 
the pustules are always seen more abundant around the points of 
inoculation, no matter in what region the operation has been 
performed. I lately collected several similar observations, which 
with M. Nocard, we followed with much interest. A ten-year old 
horse was placed under my care for cartilaginous quittor of the 
right hind foot; he had been placed in a stall alongside of a 
gourmy patient, which I had examined, and upon which I had 
just opened an abscess. An instant before, I had performed up- 
