238 
RINDERPEST. 
of the combined Veterinary skill of Europe, rather than to extend un¬ 
necessarily the limits of this article. I will only add that the same 
series of experiments established the fact that hides which had been 
steeped in alkaline solutions (lye), in milk of lime or in boiling water, 
proved absolutely non-infecting. 
If dried hides can be freely admitted into commerce in Europe, 
and if two days’ exposure is destructive to the poison at ordinary tem¬ 
peratures, how much more safely may they be admitted if they have 
been first dried to prepare them for shipping, and then stowed away for 
nine or ten days more in crossing the Atlantic. There are only two 
possible conditions in which imported hides may preserve the virus of 
rinderpest : 1st, if they are frozen so that their organic constituents may 
be locked up without change until again thawed out; and-2d, when 
taken from animals that have died on shipboard during the passage. 
But hides shipped in a frozen condition would be thawed out in cross¬ 
ing the Gulf Stream, and would arrive soft and wet, so that they would 
be condemned as failing to meet the requirements, dry and hard; and 
hides taken from animal's dying during the voyage would be equally 
disqualified, from the fact that the ship failed to present a clean bill of 
health for the trip. 
On the whole, then, the interests of the leather trade may be safely 
consulted so far as to allow the importation of hides that are perfectly 
dried and hard, while all fresh , soft or ivet hides should still be . 
excluded. 
DRIED HORNS, HOOFS AND BONES. 
Like all other fresh products of the animal, these are infecting when 
newly removed from the sick, but in the dried condition they are equally 
harmless with dried hides, and are, therefore, legitimate objects of inter¬ 
national commerce. 
FAT. 
This, as found in commerce, having been melted and poured into 
casks or bladders, is harmless, by reason of the high temperature to 
which it has been subjected, and may, therefore, be left out of account. 
If, however, unmelted fat were an article of import with us as it is in 
various countries of Europe, it would prove equally dangerous with 
fresh meat, and ought, therefore, to be absolutely interdicted. 
WOOL, HAIR, BRISTLES. 
Wool, like hides, interests us directly, as we fail to produce enough 
for our own consumption, and import largely from abroad. Theoreti- 
