Besides there were found among the animals slaughtered in the abattoirs of Schiedam, Overschie-Schiebroek, Kethel, and Delftshaven 267 animals affected with pleuropneumonia. Of course, they could not count those which were exported from the district, and which may have been found in the same condition-still these ought to be taken into account. Here is the table for the abattoirs above mentioned:

In 1880 they only found in these same abattoirs 177 animals affected with pleuropneumonia, or 90 less than in 1881, which indicates a going backwards instead of progress as in the remainder of Holland.

Consequently, for 24,594 animals inoculated there occurred 272 deaths from the operation, and 267 cases of disease found at abattoirs, in all 539, or 24 per cent.

If these figures were exact they would already be unfavorably compared with those obtained in the remainder of Holland; but they cannot be exact. In the spoeling district they fatten animals, and only a small part of these are consumed in this district, the immense majority of them being exported. There is no information in regard to the latter, and it is not known how many of them have the disease in a chronic form or have had mild attacks followed by recovery.

To this very clear statement the following remarks by Prof. G. T. Brown, of the Royal Veterinary College, are added to show that substantially the same views are held by him :*

Pleuro-pneumonia cannot be extirpated by the adoption of inoculation. The experiences of the Netherlands prove that other and stronger measures are required. In the year 1871 slaughter of diseased animals was commenced in the Netherlands, and during the year there were over 6,000 cattle attacked with pleuro-pneumonia. By a decree of the 30th of October, 1872, owners of cattle were compelled to slaughter not only diseased animals, but also those which had been herded with them, within eight days from the appearance of the disease, unless the animals had been inoculated immediately.

These regulations had the effect of reducing the number of attacks from 6,000 in 1871 to 4,000 in 1872. Further provisions for arresting the spreading of pleuro-pneumonia in the Netherlands were enforced in the following year. By a decree of October, 1873, it was forbidden to move cattle out of infected districts, except under severe restrictions. All the cattle in those districts were registered, and any change which took place in respect to the number of animals specified in the lists had to be immediately reported to the inspector, and if any animal died or was slaughtered, notice of the fact had to be given to the inspector within twelve hours after the occurrence, in order that an examination might be made before any part of the animal was removed. Under this system the number of attacks was reduced to 2,479 in the year, and it may be noted that this number was not further diminished during 1874 and 1875, notwithstanding that in 1874 inoculation of all suspected animals was made compulsory. In 1876 the slaughter of the whole herd, as soon as pleuro-pneumonia made its appearance, was ordered by royal decree, and from that time the decrease in the number of attacks was extremely marked. During the first year of this system the cases were reduced from 2,227 in 1875, to 1,723 in 1876. In the following year, 1877, the number of attacks fell to 951. In 1878 it was 698, in 1879 there was a further decrease to 157, and in 1880 the total cases of pleuro-pneumonia in the whole Kingdom of the Netherlands only reached the number of 48.

Since 1880 very few animals have been attacked by pleuro-pneumonia, but in the spoeling district some very curious results were obtained from the examination of the carcasses of cattle which were sent for slaughter in the ordinary course of trade, not being suspected at the time to be suffering from pleuro-pneumonia or any other disease. In consequence of the prevalence of pleuro-pneumonia in the spoeling district, no cattle have been permitted to leave that district alive for a long time past, and whenever cattle are slaughtered within the district, they are examined after death by the veterinary inspectors. The result of these inspections was the discovery in numerous instances of the existence of pleuro-pneumonia in the lungs of cattle, which during life had given no evidence of the disease.

These facts indicate that the most stringent measures are not immediately effectuai in extirpating the disease.

Veterinarian, 1886, p. 10.

According to the report for 1881 the number of cases of pleuro-pneumonia during the year was as follows:

There were slaughtered during the year, of suspected cattle, the following numbers:

Of the suspected cattle slaughtered there were found diseased:

In South Holland

In Limburg..

In Zeeland..

In North Brabant

Total

The table of inoculations is given as follows:

District.

2,932

82

29

7

3,050

168

21

12

1

202

A table is also given which shows the total number of animals affected with pleuro-pneumonia for each year from 1875 to 1884. This table, which includes both the animals recognized to be sick during life and also those in which lesions of the disease were found in the lungs at the abattoirs, is as follows:

These tables from the report of 1884 give quite a different idea of the results of the measures adopted in Holland for the suppression of pleuropneumonia from that which has been current for several years. It will be seen that the number of cases of disease reached its minimum in 1881

Verslaga an den Köning van de Bevindingen en Handelingen van het Veeartsenijkundig Staatstoezicht in het Jaar 1884.

when it fell to 99, but that it rapidly increased after that year until in 1884 it reached the very considerable number of 436, of which 335, or nearly 77 per cent., occurred in South Holland, where inoculation is practiced. It is evident, therefore, that inoculation has not yet extirpated this disease from Holland, nor is this measure sufficient to do this even when assisted by the slaughter of all the apparently diseased animals. On the contrary, with the most rigid supervision of all the cattle in the spoeling district, and the immediate slaughter of the sick and the inoculation of all those exposed, there were more cases of disease in 1884 than in any year since 1878. This would indicate that pleuro-pneumonia has been restricted in its ravages as much as is possible while inoculation is practiced, and that the plague will not be exterminated until this practice is prohibited and all infected herds are slaughtered.

BELGIUM.

As the practice of inoculation originated in Belgium and has been largely followed there, it is interesting to inquire into the opinions in regard to it and into its practical results. There is a general opinion even among veterinarians that the experiments and reports of the Bel gian commission were all favorable to inoculation. On this point Dr. Oemler writes:*

The commission appointed by the Belgian ministry expressed itself against the value of inoculation in the first five reports; the sixth report contained a majority and a minority report, the latter being in favor of inoculation; the seventh and last report, of November 18, 1864, pronounced itself unanimously in favor of inoculation. Professor Verheyen (one of the ablest members of the commission), a decided opponent of inoculation, had died in the mean time and took no part in the preparation of this report.-(Oesterr. Vierteljahrschr. f. wissensch. Veterinärk., 26, B., 2. H., 1866, S. 157.)

In the Belgian official report for 1878 we are told that according to M. Vaes, veterinarian at Hasselt, some of the distillers do not practice inoculation until there is an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia in their stables. As soon as the disease appears they inoculate every animal. Under such circumstances, he remarks, inoculation very often fails to produce the desired results, and this failure is the criterion for the abandonment of the practice until the disease, after having disappeared for some time, invades the herd anew. On the other hand, he says, many distillers at Hasselt always keep their animals inoculated, and at these stables cases of pleuro-pneumonia are continually found. When inoculation is constantly practiced under favorable conditions, cases of pleuropneumonia still appear, but they are more rare and of shorter duration (p. 55). M. Gailly and many others have observed pleuro-pneumonia even in stables containing many animals when it only attacked a very small number, although inoculation was not practiced (p. 56). M. Cambron, veterinarian at Villance, found pleuro-pneumonia in a stable of 30 head, of which only a single one was killed. The others had a cough, but did not present definite symptoms from which pleuro-pneumonia. could be diagnosed (p. 57). M. Patte, veterinarian at Convin, found pleuro-pneumonia in five stables, in two of which inoculation was prac ticed. One of these stables contained 99 animals. The disease continued in spite of the inoculation (p. 57). M. Villeyn, veterinarian at Ecloo, having recognized the existence of pleuro-pneumonia in the stable of a farmer at Maldeghem the 27th of June, inoculated the remainder of the animals. He had almost concluded that it was successful, when, July 20, he found one of the inoculated cows with the symptoms of pleuro

*Loc. cit.., p. 122.

pneumonia. He soon recognized the disease with 5 other animals in the herd. He did not know to what to attribute the unfavorable result; the lymph was gathered and the inoculation made under good condi tions (p. 57).

In the report for 1881, Dr. Wehenkel, the chief veterinarian, says: With Leblanc, Zundel, Lydtin, Roloff, Müller of Berlin, and many others, we think that it is in a proper application of sanitary measures, in the slaughter of sick animals and a rigorous quarantine, if not the sacrifice of the suspected animals, that we ought even at present to seek the true means of freeing ourselves from this disease. The good results obtained in other countries assure us of the efficacy of such measures. The means that we recommend would cost, perhaps, for the moment, somewhat dear, but all well considered, we are convinced the systein now in use is still more costly (p. 44).

He further says:

We cannot refrain from bringing out the singular fact that this year again the localities which have furnished the most victims to pleuro-pneumonia are found among those where the veterinarians or the principal owners of bovine animals are partisans of inoculation. Among these we would especially mention the localities of Hasselt, Anvers, and Hal. In the two departments of Hasselt (which includes Curange), the greater part of the distillers are, we are told, partisans of Willems' inoculation, and, however, abstraction made for the hundred and some animals affected with conta gious pleuro-pneumonia and sent to the abattoirs of the other cities, these two localities have furnished more than 300 of the 355 animals affected with this disease in Limburg. In the province of Anvers, Déle has been obliged to kill, during 1881, 56 of the 129 animals recognized as affected with this disease in the department confided to his care. In Brabant, finally, the department of Hal has furnished 66 of the 420 animals found with the disease (p. 47). We are not alone, then, when it comes to pro nouncing upon the efficacy of this operation. * We have been brought to write these few lines by reading a passage of the résumé of the veterinary reports of the province of Namur on the sanitary condition during the first trimester, in which it is said, "that it is to be desired that the Government take severe measures of sanitary police in order to diminish the number of victims that this redoubtable disease does not cease to make everywhere where it prevails; it might in imitation of the French Republic give to the inoculation of Willems a legal status."

*

*

If we share perfectly the opinion of the honorable colleague of the provincial commission of Namur as to the urgency of the application of severe measures of sanitary police against contagious pleuro-pneumonia, we regret not to desire with him that our Government follow here the example of France, above all if we admit that this has resulted as says the learned inspector of the veterinary schools of this latter country. We are convinced that in this important question our Government will not make a decision until there is a well-fixed opinion on the real value of the measures to be recommended, and we are no less convinced that in such a cause it will be forced into action by no one. We have not a particle of doubt that the only power which in the struggle against the disastrous disease under consideration can bring our Government to substitute some other system for the wise measures of a rigorous sanitary police is the brilliant light of facts, and not an uncertain or a contested light.

This is certainly not the moment to decree obligatory inoculation or even to recommend its administrative employment. It is very true that the practice of M. Willems has at this time numerous partisans, and among them very learned and competent men; but it is none the less true that other practitioners, who have also their value and merit, do not share this opinion, and express their doubts in regard to the efficacy and the opportunity for the employment of this measure considered as a preventive for pleuropneumonia. More than this, certain veterinarians, and among them the most distinguished, such as Lydtin, the chief of the veterinary service of the Grand Duchy of Baden, Zundel, superior veterinarian of Alsace-Lorraine, and others, are even of the opinion or are disposed to believe that inoculation is a means of keeping up and propagating the disease under consideration.

It seems strange to see a practitioner, whose knowledge we esteem, recommend obligatory inoculation to the Government when only three paragraphis farther on he says to us that he is inclined to believe that the animals which have undergone the inoculation of Willems with success, as well as those which have had the disease in a mild form by virulent impregnation, are still apt to transmit, during a certain time, the disease to healthy animals, and that he considers it imprudent to buy animals from stables where the disease appears to have disappeared within a year or more without the animals having been replaced with fresh ones. If this is the case, would it not be better from an economical and sanitary standpoint, to get rid of the infected or suspected animals by sending them to the butcher than to communicate to them the power of transmitting the dis

ease by inoculating them, and to thus make it impossible to dispose of them within a year or more without danger?

To raise the question is, it seems to us, to settle it

Moreover, Halot, in his résumé relative to the sanitary condition of the animals in the province of Namur during the 4th trimester, has furnished an argument which tends to prove the deceptions which the license of obligatory inoculation may have in store for us. This is, in effect, what we read in this résumé, "at Willerzie (Gedinne), which is the best proved locality in this commune, the disease has continued more than a year and a half in spite of the best hygienic conditions and of inoculation which appears at present to give such favorable results. (Pp. 45-46.)

In the report for 1882, we are again told that

As to information bearing on inoculation it is neither more nor less demonstrative and concordant than that of preceding years; we find nothing sufficiently interesting to attract special attention. We mention, however, a fact which appears to merit attention by the figure of losses that the disease has occasioned in this case; it occurred at the industrial agricultural establishment of Bernissem where, from January 12 to March 3, 42 animals had to be slaughtered. The cause of the appearance of the disease in this establishment has remained unknown. All the bovine animals which were found there were inoculated, but this operation did not give a very conclusive result, says Eraers, who makes the report, for 34 animals were still slaughtered after having been inoculated. The disease was extinguished after six weeks, but why? The partisans of inoculation say that it was because of the operation; those who are not partisans of this operation contend, and perhaps with as much reason, that this result is due to the hygienic and sanitary measures to which they had recourse from the beginning of the disease (slaughter, disinfection, whitewashing, cleaning, &c.). What militates in favor of the latter view is the complete disappearance of the disease from the stables of Bernissem while at Hasselt, where the measures of sequestration, &c., are not strictly applied the affection always exists. We believe we have found another proof of this fact in what we have observed in one of the centers of contagious pleuro-pneumonia in Brabant (a farm at Rhode-Saint-Genése); in spite of the inoculations and reinoculations to which they had recourse during a number of years, this disease continued to maintain itself there, and it was only when they dedecided upon a rigorous execution of the prescribed measures that the disease almost completely disappeared in a short time.*

#

The result of the struggle with pleuro-pneumonia in Belgium is seen by the following table, which gives the number of cases annually for sixteen years :

This table demonstrates that for sixteen years there has been no progress towards extirpating this disease; that in 1878 there were twice as many cases as in 1868, and that for the last five years of the series the losses were more severe than for the first five years. On this subject Oemler remarks:†

Of the cases of disease most appeared in the province of Limburg in proportion to the number of animals, and of these cases the greater part were in the city of Hasselt where Willems made his first inoculation experiments in 1850, and where up to this time most of the newly introduced cattle are immediately subjected to protective inoculation. Thus, in the year 1876 there were 455 cases in the province of Limburg and 429 for the city of Hasselt alone, while of the 682 cases which appeared in the province of Limburg in 1878, 600 occurred in Hasselt, where, in the twenty distilleries, about 3,500 head of cattle are kept for fattening, which are changed two to three times annually. (Archiv f. wissensch. u. prakt. Thierh., VII, 414.)

*

Royaume de Belgique. Etat sanitaire des animaux domestiques d'aprés les rapports officiels des médecins vétérinaires du gouvernement. Par le Dr. J. M. Wehenkel, Bruxelles. (Annual.)

+ Archiv f. wissensch. u. prakt. Thierh., X, p. 120.