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48
generally much milder, and the proportion is never
greater. The effect of this, he says, is to accelerate
the progress of the disease, so that a district
through which it would take a quarter of a year,
or perhaps half a year, to travel, would receive the
disease completely in eight days, and the loss
would not be greater, but generally much less.
But this recommendation requires very serious
consideration; for at present, although inoculation
is not dangerous to the native cattle of the
steppes, it is highly so to the cattle of Eastern
Europe. Professor Jessen himself tried it on the
large stock of the Grand Duchess Helena, and it
destroyed 90 per cent, of them. It would seem,
therefore, that we must first try to lessen the
virulence of the poison, so that it may be used with
comparative safety ; and, judging from the experience
we have had of the effects of vaccine, it is
possible that the virus of the cattle plague may be
made an equally mild and certain prophylactic by
passing it through the system of another sort of
animal, or even through the systems of many
animals of the same species. The probability of
this is enhanced by the fact that the disease
appears to be communicable to other kinds of
ruminants. In Austria and Hungary it has
often attacked sheep. The same has been
observed in Italy; and Professor Gerlach says that
in Sardinia it has been known to attack goats.