The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-05 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, JAIN UARY 5, 1866.

The ravages of the cattle plague continue to in-
crease rather than diminish. Ordinarily in epi-
demics of this kind fear travels faster than fact,
and rumour greatly exaggerates the extent and the
danger of the attacks. But unfortunately, in the
case of this pestilence, to whatever particular form
it may belong, the official statistics when they are
published afford very little consolation. The le-
turns just issued by Mr. 'WILLIAMS, from the Vete-
rinary Department of the Privy Council Office, do
not profess to give the total number of cases which
have occurred in Great Britain, but only those
which have been ascertained from information given
by the official inspectors ; yet the sums total amount
to something alarming. Taking the whole of England
and Scotland, the numbers attacked during the last
three -weeks have been respectively 6,054, 6,256,
and 7,693, thus manifesting a rapid increase. The
rise in the number of cases during the week ending
last Saturday was over fourteen hundred, though
whether this extraordinary increase was due to any
atmospheric influence or otherwise is only matter of
conjecture. It would seem from the high rate of
bronchitis and other chest affections in the Regis-
trar-General's last report as if the same influence
affected man and beast, and as if the epidemic bore
more relation to diseases of that character than to
the zymotic order. Whatever its origin or its
nature, the cattle plague has certainly now reached
a pitch which calls public attention to the imme-
diate and serious consideration of two points. The
first is whether everything has been done that
might be done towards the discovery of a cure ; the
second concerns the pecuniary interests affected by
the wholesale loss and slaughter. With regard to
the first of these questions, every one must frankly
admit that as yet the professors of our veterinary
science have now no great laurels. They have
honestly confessed themselves baffled by a disease
whose severity and extreme infection certainly ren-
dersitmost difficult to copewith. But the cure of the
disease seems to be regarded as almost hopeless, and
the only consideration is how to stop the infection
from spreading—a most necessary and praiseworthy
endeavour, it is true, bat one which need not pre-
vent the employment of remedial measures towards
animals already attacked. There are so many con-
flictin 0. interests that the matter is a difficult one to
deal with. Thus it was proposed to establish sana-
toriums, but the attempt was abandoned, because
it was contended that the removal of diseased cattle
from the place where they were first attacked to
the sanatorium would spread the infection. It
seems, nevertheless, a great pity that there has not
been some effort made to collect a good many cases in
different stages under close medical inspection, in
order to try some modes of treatment which could
not be fairly experimented upon in isolated cases.
It is very much to be regretted that the plan so
stronMY recommended by Mr. URQL'IIART and
others has
never been given a fill and fair
trial. By a
BYstetn of radiating heat it was pro-
posed to endeavour to carry off the disease
on the pane principle that in 8, human being at 1