1 Jan., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 61 
Tnoculation should be performed without delay. Ordinary station cattle 
to be inoculated should be placed in a crush, and as many as possible at a time, 
so that the work may be carried on quickly. Dairy cattle may be secured in a 
bail; while young calves may be held against the rails in a stockyard. The 
syringe now comes into use, and a word or two of description here may be 
useful. It is in principle like a squirt or garden syringe, but should have the 
very latest improvements. The cylinder or barrel should be made of stout glass to 
hold 10 c.c. with metal protecting sides, on each of which are fixed either a 
metal ring or a projecting piece to enable the operator to inject the 
blood with one hand. ‘The plunger on the piston-rod should be made 
of rubber. In the latest form of syringe there is a very ingenious 
device for tightening or slackening the rubber washer of the piston- 
rod without removing the latter from the cylinder. On the glass 
cylinder of some kinds and on the piston-rod of others (the latter preferred), 
there will be noticed a row of figures, each one above a transverse line. The 
space between each line indicated is 1 ¢.c. (cubic centimetre)—that is to say, 
when the piston rod has been withdrawn until the figure 4 is visible, there will 
be 4: cubic centimetres of space in the cylinder of the syringe. On the piston- 
rod of all modern syringes there is also a little set-screw which can be screwed 
up and down to any part of the rod; therefore, if the syringe is first filled 
with blood and the set-screw turned down to the figure 5, only 5 cubic centi- 
metres of blood can be injected. The above description only refers to syringes 
having the figures 1 to 10 on the piston-rod reading from the handle to the 
rubber plunger. With each syringe there is usually supplied one or more 
holiow needles, each having a metal socket which fits on to the nozzle-point of 
the metal protector of the glass cylinder. As the animals shrink and move 
suddenly from the needle when thrust into them, it is very apt to get broken 
owing toits being rigidly attached to the syringe, and on account of its very 
thin wall with large aperture, which is liable to become clogged when passing 
through the skin; consequently another needle has been designed. The 
improved needle has a smaller aperture with thick wall, thus enabling the point 
to be sharpened on an oilstone like a lancet. The needle is fixed ina small 
metal handle with depressions on either side for the thumb and finger and a 
circular shield in front which enables the operator to have a firmer grasp. 
Instead of being fixed rigidly on the syringe, it is connected by means of about 
2, inches of thick-walled indiarubber tube, one end of which fits on to the 
nozzle of the syringe, while the other is attached to the handle of the needle, 
thus giving free play to the syringe when blood is being injected into an 
animal, and the operator has more freedom in using it. The tubing should be 
three-eighths of an inch in diameter, and the walls so thick that the aperture 1s 
only one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter. Thick tubing does not kink and 
stop the flow of blood, even when turned at right angles. The instrument, 
having been made ready by fitting on the tube and needle, is filled with 
blood from the small bottle, and the set-screw fixed at the figure 5. 
As explained above, the inoculation of calves for subsequent supply 
of blood takes place direct into the jugular vein, but this process could not be 
earried outin inoculating cattle generally as a preventive against Tick Fever. 
However, the following is the method in use at the present time, and where- 
ever adopted has given satisfactory results :—A. little fold of loose skin behind 
the shoulder of the animal to be inoculated is lifted from the ribs with the 
lefthand. ‘The needle, with the flattened edge outward, is then plunged with 
a sudden thrust obliquely about an inch through the skin into the loose or 
subcutaneous tissue ; thereafter the piston is pressed very slowly down, and 
the blood forced into the animal. Although practical experience has proved 
that behind the shoulder is the most favourable site for the inoculation, it may 
be accomplished, when necessity arises, In any other part of the body where 
the skin is loose. But animals should not be inoculated in the tail, the reasons 
_peing, in the first place, that the tail is exceedingly sensitive, and the needle is 
more apt to get broken in it than in any other portion of the body, and, in the 
