A Valuable Invention.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 240, 12 January 1881, Page 2

A Valuable Invention.

“ There is something like excitement in medical circles just now,” writes the London correspondent of a Scotch paper received by the last mail, “in regard to the announcement of what appear to be startling disclosures by French physicians. A short time since M. Pasteni, an eminent physiologist in Paris, gave out as his belief that the day would come when almost all epidemic disease might be prevented by inoculation in the same manner that smallpox is prevented by vaccination. He had already succeeded in proving that the principle might be advantageously applied to fowls, to protect them from the species of cholera to which they are subject. Now Professor Toussant announces that he has discovered the means of saving sheep and cattle from the terrible effects of the foot-and-mouth disease, which yearly destroys so large a number of animals. His mode of procedure is to take some blood from an animal which has died of the same disease, and simply to defibrine it by means of heat, end this done, to inoculate sheep several times with it, and the animals are unable to contract the malady. The only question which remains is as to whether the good effects continue for any length of time, and we may safely suppose that the inoculation operates as a safeguard as long in the animal as in the man. Several French physicians are now pursuing similar investigations on a large scale. They believe that a new era is about to dawn, in which all contagious diseases may have preventives.” tzaftf^awaapaa—na—an——an— mmm