The Home Office has appointed a commission to inquire into
the origin and nature of the cattle plague, the best mode of treat- ment, and the most efficient preventives. The commission includes Lord Spencer, Lord Cranbourne, Mr. Robert Lowe, Mr. Lyon Playfair, Mr. R. Quain, M.D., and several other agriculturists and physicians. It wants, however, one addition, that of a shrewd browbeating Old Bailey lawyer who can cow the doctors into some- thing like accuracy and moderation. There never was such an expo- sure of a professedly scientific profession as this Rinderpest has made of the veterinary surgeons. No two of them agree, not one con- siders it needful to reconcile theory and facts, and their great gun, Mr. Gamgee, while opening a new " college " at Bayswater, re- peated for the hundreth time that science was powerless, and that the only remedies for the disease were the poleaxe and the knife. The herd with the disease in it is to be slaughtered lest it should die. If that is all veterinary science can do, we trust the next farmer who is threatened will save his money and his temper by consulting that much more appropriate authority—the nearest butcher. Mr. Gamgee says we kill any horse with the glanders,— are, indeed, compelled to do it by Act of Parliament. Very true, but that Act was passed because glanders is what he peremptorily declares the Rinderpest is not, communicable to human beings.
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