9 DECEMBER 1865, Page 22

The Cat& Plague; or, Contagious Typhus in Horned Cattk. By

H. Bourguignon. (Churchill.)—Whilst inclining to the opinion that this disease has been imported into the country from the steppes of Russia, M. Bourguignon also believes that certain atmospheric conditions are necessary for its spread in places where it does not permanently rage. This view seems to be confirmed by our experiences of cholera, for it is certain that a peculiar state of the air has been noticed during each epidemic. But there is no reason to believe that the air alone can pro- duce either cholera or the cattle plague in this country, and there is always more or less evidence of their actual importation. It therefore becomes necessary to study the history and nature of such diseases, and especially their mode of propagation in those regions which may be con- sidered as their natural home. This duty, so far as the cattle plague is concerned, has been discharged by M. Bourguignon with considerable industry and skill, and he justly complains that England has been taken unawares in a matter of which the investigation might and should have been diligently pursued. For it seems that the great cattle plagues in the middle of the eighteenth century were profoundly studied by Englishmen, whose labours are highly spoken of by our author, but whose works, he is sorry to say, are now almost unread. Especially he laments that so little attention has been paid to the subject of inoculation, on which Layard in 1757 wrote in a way of which M. Bourguignon says that "it would be difficult to offer an ex- ample of greater prudence or precision." It was only at the end of the malady, however, at that time that this treatment was discovered Recently it has been adopted with great success in Russia, and perhaps by the time the present plague has run its course in England, the same treatment may have been begun to be understood and practised here, in which case let us hope that the records of it may not again be buried in oblivion in the British Museum.