The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1882-01-05
Animal " cclnxtiOn.

| Thus, then, it becomes possible to
affect sheep and cattle with form of
| anthrax-disease so mild as to bear much
the same relation to the severer forms
that cowpox bears to smallpox; and for
this artificial affection with the mitigated
disorder Pasteur uses the term ''vaccina-
tion." The question that now arises-to
which the whole previous investigation
has led up s the most important OF all:
Docs this vaccination" with the mild
| virus afford the same protection against
the action of the severe, that is impaired
by cowpox vaccination against small
pox? To this question affirmative an
swers were last year obtained by
Professor Greenfield ION Professor Bur
don .Sandersons suggestios) in regard to
bovine animals, and by M. Toussaint in
regard to sheep and dogs; the former,
when "vaccinated" from rodents and the
latter from fluids cultivated" outside
the living body after a method devised
by M. Toussaint, proving themselves in
capable of being infected with any form
OF anthrax disease, though repeatedly in
oculated with the malignant virus,
and remaining free from all dis
order, either constitutional or local. The
same result having been obtained
from experiments made by Pasteur him
self, probably about the same date, with
char bon-virus cultivated in the manner
previously described, it was deemed ex-
pedient by one OF the Provincial Agri-
cultural Societies of France that this
important discovery should be publicly
demonstrated on great scale. Accord
ingly, farm and flock of fifty sheep
have been placed at NJ, Pasteur's dis
posal, he 'vaccinated" twenty-five of the
flock (distinR uished by a perforation of
their ears) with the mild virus on the
3D. of May last, and repeated the opera
ton on the 18th of the same month.
The animals all passed through a slight
lndisposition, but at the end of the
month none of them were found to have
lost either fat, appetite, or iveliness.
On the 31st of that month, all the fifty
sheep, without distinction, were inoculat-
ed with the strongest carbon virus,
and NJ. Pasteur predicted that on
the following day the twenty-five sheep
inocculated for the first time would all
be dead, while those protected by previ-
Gus vaccination" with the mild virus
would be perfectly free from even slight
indisposition. A large assemblage of
agricultural authorities, cavalry officers,
and veterinary surgeons having met at
the field the next afternoon June lst),
the result was found to be exactly in
accordance with M. Pasteur's predic-
tons. At two o'clock twenty-three of
the unprotected" sheep were dead; the
twenty-fourth died within another hour,
and the twenty-fifth an hour afterward.
But the twenty-five "vaccinated" sheep
were all in perfectly good condition; one
of them, which had been designedly in
occulated with an extra dose of poison,
having been slightly indisposed for q
few hours, but having then recovered.
The twenty-five carcases were then
buried in a selected spot, with view to
the further experimental testing Of the
poisonous effect produced upon the grass
which will grow over their graves. But
the result, says the reporter of the Times
June 2d), sis already certain; and the
agricultural public now know that an in
fallible preventive exists against the car
bou-poison, which is neither costly nor
difficult, as single man can innoculate
thousand sheep in a day." have
since learned that this protection is
being eagerly sought by the French
owners of fiocks and heards; and, if any
severe epidemic of the same kind were to
break out in this country, our own agri-
culturists would probably show them
selves quite ready to avail themselves OF
it,