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ON THE
CATTLE PLAGUE:
OR,
Contagious Typhus in Horned Cattle.
ITS HISTORY, ORIGIN, DESCRIPTION, AND TREATMENT.
BY
H. BOURGUIGNON,
Doctor of the Faculté de Paris, Fellow of the Société de Médecine
de Paris; Laureate of the Institute of France, Member of the
Legion of Honour, etc.
"Scribo nec ficta, nee picta, sed quæ ratio,
sensus et experientia docent."
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
LONDON: J CHURCHILL & SONS.
1869.
TO
MISS BURDETT COUTTS.
MADAM,
The numerous services which you have rendered, and the interest you have
shown in the calamitous epizootic which at this moment decimates the
noble herds of England, have prompted me to dedicate the following pages
to you, satisfied that I am only giving public expression to the homage
felt for you by many of your fellow-countrymen.
I have the honour to be, Madam,
With respect, your obedient servant,
H. BOURGUIGNON.
PREFACE.
Nations, during the successive phases of their evolution on the globe,
in which they advance from a state of infancy and barbarism to one of
virility and civilization, from civilization to decadence or senility;
and from decadence to their final extinction, are liable to numberless
calamities.
These calamities are produced by moral causes, and are then called
social Revolutions; and in other instances from physical causes, and
then they are termed Cataclysms, Epidemics, or Epizootics.
In these crises, the initiative and devotion of individuals, the public
administration, and the application of knowledge acquired in the Arts
and Sciences, afford collectively an infallible criterion for
ascertaining the position which a nation occupies in the scale of
civilization, and the value of its religious, social, and political
institutions.
Calamities always leave behind them disasters and victims, but they
bequeath also a precious legacy. Nations which are called upon for fresh
and progressive efforts, find in the experience they have gained a new
source of strength and means of future greatness. I am convinced that
this will be the case with England; though, helpless for the moment, and
unable to stay the Cattle Plague which now ravages her entire extent,
she will in future be found better prepared to resist the inroads of
such a direful enemy.
No branch of human knowledge has been more rudely tested during the
present epizootic than medical science. Many persons have been astounded
at its helplessness; but if they had reflected at what a distance
medicine has to follow in the wake of the exact sciences by which it is
furnished with instruments for prosecuting its researches,--that
organic chemistry progresses but slowly,--that the Cattle Plague was
entirely unknown to the present generation of medical men in
England,--and that the means for its scientific and practical study have
been therefore wholly wanting, they would have been less surprised to
find that it is as difficult to cure the Cattle Plague as it, is to cure
phthisis, cancer, hydrophobia, and the cholera, against which medicine
but too often is of little avail.
In times of great national calamity it behoves every one to contribute
in proportion to his talents, fortune, or abilities, to alleviate the
effects of the common misfortune. The poor man's mite, and the honest
intention of the most insignificant, when added to the budget of common
efforts, have their relative value; and it is for these reasons that I
have published the following monograph on the Cattle Plague.
If it assists in any way to the extinction of the present epizootic, or
if it serve to point out the necessity of combining the study of
comparative pathology with that of medicine, I shall feel that I have
contributed something which may favour my claim to be enrolled among the
citizens of England.
This book, as may easily be seen, was originally written in my native
language. A few kind and obliging friends--more particularly Mr. Taylor
Sinnett, Drs. Clapton and Gervis, of St. Thomas's Hospital, and Mr.
Berridge, of the British Museum--have rendered me the greatest
assistance in the translation. Without the guidance of such competent
auxiliaries I could not have performed my arduous task.
I therefore beg to return to those gentlemen, and to all those who have
assisted me on this occasion, my sincerest and most grateful thanks.
H. B.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction 1
FIRST PART.
The History of the Contagious Typhus of the Ox, from
the remotest Times down to the Present Day 5
SECOND PART.
CHAPTER I.--On Typhus Disease in general, and the
Typhus which affects the Ox in particular 72
CHAPTER II.--The Origin and Causes of the Ox-Typhus 84
CHAPTER III.--Description of the Contagious Typhus
of the Ox; its Symptoms, Course, Progress, &c. 140
1. Symptomatic Characteristics 141
2. Lesions found in the Bodies after Death 163
3. Diagnosis--Prognosis--Use of the Flesh of
Animals--Danger of direct Absorption 173
4. General Considerations on the Typhus, and
Recapitulation of the Symptoms 191
CHAPTER IV.--Treatment of the Ox-Typhus 206
1 & 2. Means and Measures to be employed
to resist the Causes of Contagious Typhus
of the Bovine Species 208
3. Curative Medication 237
4. Hygienic Measures to be taken against the
Extension of the Contagion--Acts and
Orders concerning sanitary Police Regulations 257
THIRD PART.
To Farmers and Graziers 281
FOURTH PART.
Suggestions on the Improvements to be effected in
the Study of Medical Science, in order that we
may be in a Condition to confront Disease generally,
and Epizootic and Epidemic Diseases in particular 311
APPENDIX.
Various Documents 337
INTRODUCTION.
Everyone is talking of the CATTLE PLAGUE! But why should we
borrow this sinister and gloomy denomination from the middle ages and
from the people's vocabulary? Is this, then, an unknown and incurable
disease? Is this the first time that it has made its appearance on the
soil of Great Britain? To judge by the manner in which the diffusion of
this complaint has been met, accounted for, explained, and discussed,
one might imagine it was so; and yet the mere observation of its causes,
its symptoms, and its signs and effects on the bodies of the diseased
animals, besides a few references to the medical library, would easily
have testified that nature did not wait until the second half of the
19th century to generate a new distemper. No! Nothing new has appeared
for a long time in the worlds of space. The cosmic phenomena pursue
their perpetual course, and the organic phenomena, _à fortiori_, do the
same. Life, throughout the whole range of the animal kingdom, whatever
may be its changes and fluctuations, submits to the fixed and invariable
laws which hold dominion over health and disease. Our presumption and
ignorance alone can account for the astonishment we manifest, not only
when we witness great general calamities, but even when we look upon
those simple morbid derangements which organic matter, both animal and
vegetable, is continually undergoing on the globe, in the natural
progress of destruction and dissolution.
The habit we most of us have contracted of confining our observations to
the phenomena which strike our eyes, instead of fixing them on the
general causes by which these phenomena have been produced; the
forgetfulness of some, in others the want of acquaintance with general
and comparative pathology, have in this instance led many conscientious
inquirers to misapprehend both the nature and the treatment of the
cattle complaint. It is in vain that we have subdivided and classed
medical science--in vain that we have arbitrarily instituted a
veterinary medicine and a human medicine; nature, in her acts, has no
such subtleties. With nature, organic matter is organic matter, life is
life; and although it may be true that both organic matter and life
become more complex, and continue to rise in perfection till they reach
man, it is quite as true that the laws of pathology and physiology are
the same in all, and that it is just as difficult to cure the typhus of
the ox as that of man. As, therefore, it is because we overlooked these
fundamental truths, that the outbreak of the cattle distemper found us
unprepared, we must treat the subject with all the gravity which is its
due.
Let it not, however, be feared that the special fact of the _so-called_
Cattle Plague will be lost sight of amidst a crowd of scientific
generalities. No; collateral reflections, seemingly foreign to the main
argument, will concur to elucidate it; and all these rays of light will
converge to a common centre, reflecting, we flatter ourselves, some
evident facts and practical truths.
This work on the contagious typhus of the ox is divided into four
principal parts.
The first part contains the history of this typhus from the remotest
times down to the present day. It is divided into several sections.
The second part, which gives the description of the disease, is
subdivided into four chapters.
The first chapter treats of general typhus, in order that a perfect
understanding may be arrived at as to the name and definition of the
particular distemper which affects the ox.
The second relates to the causes and origin of the disease.
The third treats of its symptoms, its progress, &c.
The fourth contains its mode of treatment.
The third part gives some plain instructions for the benefit of farmers,
cattle-dealers, and dairymen.
The fourth part gives a development of the scientific means and
safeguards to be adopted, in order that this country shall never relapse
into that state of helpless panic to which a want of preparation exposed
it when the present epizootia began its ravages.
FIRST PART.
_The History of the Contagious Typhus of the Ox, from the
remotest times down to the present day._
I.
General, local, and particular causes of destruction are constantly
reacting on organized creatures, and these causes account for those
_epiphytic_ diseases which infest plants, the _epizootic_ diseases which
spread mortality among the brute creation, and the _epidemic_, which
strike and are fatal to the human species. Thus it is that we
particularize at present, in the vegetable kingdom, the disease which
has attacked the vines, olive-trees, and potatoes; in the animal
kingdom, the silkworm sickness, and the cholera, and the typhoid fever
of cattle: so that we may safely say, that one or other of these
diseases is always, at a given moment, raging in some part of the globe
among some species of animal, either birds, pigs, horses, sheep, horned
cattle, or, in fine, attacks man himself.
When, however, the peccant invasion falls only on the vegetables and
animals situated at our antipodes, we seldom hear of the ravages it
commits; and when we do, forgetful of the affinity which links together
all the organic beings on the earth and their mutual dependence, nothing
can exceed the indifference we show to these calamities. Then, when the
danger threatens us nearer home, or when the evil has invaded us, we
have recourse to quarantine as the grand preservative to shield us. But
this preservative remedy is most frequently deceptive--a mere illusion;
for the real plague, typhus and cholera, borne along by the winds of
heaven, pass over the longest distances and the highest obstacles, and
baffle all our calculations; teaching us, by their successive returns,
that we shall continually be exposed to their destructive havoc so long
as we neglect to eradicate the evil at its original source, that is, in
those countries from which it emanates.
And this is the place to observe, that the cholera morbus threatens to
keep a permanent footing in the English possessions of India, because
the public works, by means of which the great rivers used to be confined
to their beds, have not of late been repaired and kept in good order in
those countries; owing to which neglect, their waters overflow the
plains, leaving, when they subside, those pestilential deposits which
afford a perpetual incubation to the cholera.
We are induced to dwell thus on the general causes of these diseases,
because the sick plants, on which dumb animals feed, and the sick
animals, on which man himself feeds, have a continual relation of cause
and effect; and we shall have to refer to this subject and give it
weight, when we come to speak of the treatment of these diseases.
It is an important fact, which deserves our most pointed attention and
consideration, that the vital resistance inherent in the animal frame to
withstand the attacks of these contagious diseases, is very far from
being the same throughout the whole kind. Man, in this respect, is the
most favoured and best fortified; he is able, without much
degenerating, to inhabit any latitude, to go with a sort of impunity, if
his calling require him to do so, amidst the most pestilential
emanations, and to continue for hours inhaling their baneful fumes. We
could quote many striking examples of this resisting power in man. But
there is one which we have recently witnessed, and which all can
appreciate. We refer to the slaughter-house of the great Metropolitan
Market. Here we saw, in lumps and fragments, every variety of corrupt
_detritus_ of animals which had been seized with the contagious typhus;
we saw the animals, too, being felled and slaughtered and dissected, in
a high temperature which rendered the air so poisonous that we could
hardly breathe it; yet amidst all this infection the workmen employed to
move and handle these revolting wrecks appeared indifferent to the
scene, and quite in their usual health. No living animal besides man
could stand such a trial; no other could breathe for hours, and day
after day, like these workmen, an atmosphere so charged with decomposing
impurities.
We say, therefore, that man may expose himself, with less danger to his
life than any other animal, to those pernicious causes which produce and
develop contagious diseases. Next to him, with respect to this power of
vital resistance, come the omnivorous animals, then the carnivorous, and
last of all, the herbivorous, in which this faculty is very feeble
indeed.
This prime consideration, to be fully understood and appreciated by
unscientific readers, would require explanations beyond the scope of
this work. Let us, however, for the present establish the fact, that
herbivorous animals, such as sheep and horned cattle, offer but a very
weak resistance to the causes which generate infectious and epizootic
diseases, and let us do our best to prove it by demonstration; for if
this truth be once admitted, we shall therefrom deduce that it is the
duty of man constantly to surround these frail and delicate creatures
with special care and attention, if he wishes to prevent their being
decimated from time to time, and if he would likewise avoid the
consequent injuries to himself--the loss of health and money accruing
from this deterioration.
So long as the herbivorous or grass-eating animal is properly fed; so
long as he browses on fat pastures; so long as his blood retains those
physiological elements which are the prime condition of health, he can,
and does, resist the causes of most contagious maladies. But if a hot
summer and a long continuance of dry weather chance to curtail, in
temperate zones, the usual abundance of his fodder, then comes the fatal
change: the blood is impoverished, the secretions are debilitated, a
strange languor runs through the system, the vital resistance is
unnerved, and he becomes an easy prey to those noxious influences which
were encountered before without injury whilst his provision was
abundant.
This is a fundamental matter. We therefore beg leave to support and
justify our argument by borrowing some additional evidence from prior
labours of ours, accomplished at the Ecole d'Alfort, near Paris,
conjointly with Professor Delafond, whose name has so often been cited
in the public journals in connexion with the cattle plague.
All vegetables and animals; with the exception of _adult_ men, whenever
their health declines from any cause (but more particularly from
paucity of food), spontaneously generate microscopic parasites, or very
minute insects, the germs of which are inherent in their system. A flock
of fleecy animals, wasted by deficient food in dry and parched meadows,
becomes attacked in due time by a parasitical cutaneous disease, known
as the _itch_, which is enough, if not checked, to destroy the whole.
Now, all that is required is to remove this flock to a more fertile
soil, where there is plenty to feed them, and the disease will disappear
of itself without any treatment. Deficiency of food destroys the health
of animals, and abundance of food overcomes disease in them.
A sheep affected by this parasitical disease may, without any fear, be
placed in a flock of healthy sheep, for he will not propagate the
distemper; but if instead of being sound and healthy, the flock is in a
weak declining state, this contaminated animal will diffuse the disease
with frightful rapidity, and may cause their entire destruction. These
facts may seem startling, but we are only speaking after the
incontestable authority of experiments.
We selected six healthy sheep, which we kept well supplied with
provisions; we covered these healthy sheep with parasites (acari). On
every one of these sound, well-fed sheep, the microscopic animalculæ
died off without generating the cutaneous disease; for the blood, the
humours, and the skin of sound and healthy sheep constitute a soil
unfavourable to the propagation of these parasites, and actually starve
them to death.
After this first experiment, we subjected these six sheep to a deficient
diet; they grew lean, their blood was impoverished, and then all we had
to do was to lay upon them not thousands and thousands of these
parasites--as we had done in the first instance--but one solitary female
in a state of fecundity; and the parasitical distemper unfolded itself
so fiercely as to cause the death of three of these sheep on which the
test was allowed to run its course; whilst the other three sheep, having
been restored in time to a recoverable condition just as they were about
to drop off, were thoroughly cured, without any special treatment, by
the sole influence of good food and ordinary hygienic attention.
Other tests, similar to these experiments, were applied to dogs, horses,
and horned cattle. A lean and scraggy dog, covered with parasites and
eruptions, with eyes running foul humour, a dog which could neither run
nor stand, and which was reduced to the last stage of wasting marasmus,
was rescued from the jaws of death and thoroughly cured without special
treatment, by the sole influence of a rich restorative diet. This dog
afterwards became a fine hunting hound, beautiful in shape, and
admirable for his sportive attributes.
These experiments having been submitted to the judgment of the Académie
des Sciences in Paris, were honoured with its approval, and the reports
concerning them were printed at the Academy's expense, and crowned at
the competitive examination.
The vital resistance of horned cattle is so feeble, that those animals
which are periodically exhibited in the north of London, though
certainly chosen from among the most healthy and robust, could not herd
together in large numbers for the space of a month in the Agricultural
Hall at Islington, without sinking under infectious and contagious
diseases--almost one and all. Under the conditions in which we see them
in that Show, a single month would be sufficient to produce almost their
complete destruction; for even a single week, which is the usual
duration of their confinement, affects them so much as to render a large
proportion of them unhealthy.
Every one knows how apt cavalry horses are to sicken and die off during
a campaign. Every one has heard of the fearful ravages amongst the
horses of the Allied armies during the Crimean war, when many companies
were dismounted owing to this mortality.
Let us now transport ourselves in thought into the middle of those
immense steppes where vast and innumerable herds of herbivorous animals
are being bred for our supply, and consider what will be the effects on
their health and life if they should be afflicted with a scarcity of
forage, in consequence of this long dry summer.
It is unnecessary to say that there exist in Russia, in Hungary, in
Australia, in North and South America, and in many other parts of the
globe, large tracts of country which are still uninhabited, whose
uncultivated soil supplies with food great numbers of sheep and cattle.
These spacious tracts, known as moorlands or steppes, particularly
abound in Russia, on the banks of the Wolga, the Don, the Dnieper; in
Hungary, on the banks of the Danube; and also in South America, in the
republics of Venezuela, New Granada, Columbia, &c.
Now, in hot and rainy seasons these steppes teem with rich and luxuriant
verdure; the plants growing up in the marshes are prolific and abundant,
and even those parts of the wild moors which produce nothing but heath
are capable of feeding and fattening flocks and herds.
Under conditions so auspicious as these, animals may still suffer, but
in what way? By excess of food, or repletion. They are in general robust
and healthy, and thus fortified they inhale without detriment the
deleterious gases of oxygen with carbon, carburetted hydrogen and the
like, exhaled by the plants which grow out of the swampy soils. Thus
protected, too, they are proof against the fluctuations of the seasons,
and against every injury which threatens them; and their strong and
sound condition enables them to sustain the fatigues of their long and
arduous journeys, and to supply the rich countries of the West with
their flesh, fleece, and hides.
When the seasons have thus conveyed a due proportion of heat, water, and
electricity to the elements of the soil, both plants and animals conduce
to the comfort and health of man, and fulfil his expectations. But the
laws of nature are involved in mystery. Good and evil go hand in
hand--death and life travel close together--and a few years of
prosperous harvests are almost invariably followed by blight,
barrenness, and scarcity. Most men think only of the present time, and
this imprudence and want of foresight prevent farmers and great cattle
proprietors from collecting and holding in reserve the requisite stores
of sustenance to supply their sheep and oxen during these barren
seasons. Sickness then breaks out, and these helpless creatures perish
in vast numbers, to the detriment of their owners' best interests.
And truly, when continual rains cause the rivers to overflow, when the
plains are drenched and soaked, or when a burning sun scorches the
ground, herbivorous animals wander in vain from field to field in quest
of sustenance to restore their strength, or of pure and healthy water to
slake their thirst; their vital resistance dwindles away, deleterious
gases poison and bewilder them, their blood is debased, and as Ovid
says,
"Corpora foeda jacent, vitiantur odoribus herbæ."
And since these mild and harmless animals, which seem to have been
created merely to clothe us, and to nourish us with their milk and
flesh, have not been endowed by nature either with the intelligence, or
the activity, or the cunning, or the invention, or the skill bestowed on
the omnivorous and carnivorous species, hard is their fate under the
pressing needs of hunger. Peaceful creatures, they browse in vain on
deleterious plants on a sterile soil; their external and internal
teguments now afford a favourable seat for the propagation of
parasites--for the _parasitogenia_; and soon after a general _adynamia_,
or relaxation of the fibres, delivers them up without resistance to the
morbific elements of the infectious diseases to which they are exposed,
where the languishing, the sick, and the rotting are herded together,
and they are carried off by hecatombs by this wasteful and devouring
typhus.
II.
We may readily conclude, from these general observations on infectious
and contagious diseases, that they must have existed in all former ages;
and if in our present advanced state of civilization they are so
destructive, we may be sure that in those remote periods they must have
been, both as regards man as well as the brute creation, the cause of
general extermination, in whatever parts of the earth they prevailed.
And indeed, whenever we refer to ancient or modern history, we are
continually struck with the analogy which exists between the epidemic
diseases signalized by the general name of PLAGUE, and which
decimated all the living beings, and those which more recently, and at
the present moment, have startled the world by their fatal effects on
men and animals.
Moreover, we cannot too often repeat the fact--in order that those
documents relating to the past which contain useful instruction may be
examined and searched into--that the physiological and pathological laws
which rule and determine the phenomena of organic matter, whether in
health or sickness, were, like the laws of chemistry, electricity, and
astronomy, originally established at the time of creation, and that
matter submits with passive obedience to the laws of transformation and
transubstantiation, which are the absolute condition of life. These are
the eternal laws of which a synthesis so admirable is furnished by the
Gospel, in this short injunction, "_Take, eat, this is my body; drink,
this is my blood._"
Now, if man, who is the sovereign master of this matter, did not take
care to regulate and modify it for his own benefit and the benefit of
all living creatures on whom his own life depends, as well as his wealth
and happiness; if he did not seek thereby continually to diminish the
sum of evil, and to extend the sum of good which it is his mission to
increase, he would violate these laws, which are inherent in matter, and
which have existed for his use since the creation of the world.
We must likewise believe that those PLAGUES which are spoken of
in the Bible, those which Homer alludes to, that which is related by
Plutarch, and which succeeded the general drought in 753 before Christ;
those mentioned by Titus Livius, Virgil, Ovid, and other Latin authors,
the most virulent of which plagues raged in the years 310, 212, and 178
of the Foundation of Rome, resembled the epidemics or plagues which are
witnessed in our own day.
The plague of 212 swept away all the inhabitants of Sicily, cattle as
well as men; that of 178 destroyed all the priests, who sought in vain
for victims free from the contagion, to offer them up as sacrifices to
the offended Gods.
Cecilius Severus gives a most striking description of a pestilential
disease which, in 376 A.D., swept away all the cattle in
Europe. Judging from his account of that scourge, we may fairly believe
that the distemper he has described was identically the same as the one
which has just broken out in England. "A universal distaste, sudden
dejection, vertigoes, spasmodic tension in the limbs, _a painful_
_swelling of the lower belly_, violent affections of the nerves, sudden
death--everything shows the presence of a pestilential ferment, which
irritates the solids, infects and vitiates the fluids, which is the
cause of the putrefaction of the humours, manifested by the swelling of
the lower belly, which in that case depends on a putrid fermentation so
as to disengage air."
A piece of iron, representing the sign of the Cross, was heated in the
fire, and when red-hot was applied to the forehead of the sick animals;
and this remedy was looked upon at that time as the most effectual they
could apply.
Grégoire de Tours makes mention of an epidemic, the result of a long dry
summer, which, in 592, was very fatal in its havoc, sparing no living
creature whatever.
André Duchesne, in his "History of England," speaks of an epidemic
which, in 1316, during the reign of Edward II., owed its origin, on the
contrary, to a long season of rains.
The celebrated physicians Ramazzini and Lancisi relate that in 1711, an
ox which had been imported from Hungary, that constant focus of typhus,
displayed the most deadly form of the cattle disease, in the Venetian
territory, although no alteration in the air or waters had been observed
in Italy, and the seasons had been regular and the pastures abundant.
The contagion spread into Piedmont, where it carried of 70,000 head of
cattle; thence it extended to France and Holland, each of which
countries lost 200,000 of these animals. The trade in hides introduced
the distemper into England, where it proved no less fatal. It was the
same in the other countries of Europe.
In this disease, the intestines of the affected cattle were, as in the
present epizootia, inflamed, and strewed over with livid spots and
ulcerations, and the blood, though apparently fluid in the body of the
animal, _coagulated directly after it had issued from the vein_.
Herment thence concludes, that this epizootia is nothing more than an
inflammation of the blood. Lancisi advised his contemporaries to put to
death without pity every animal which was affected or seemed to be
affected with the disease; and it was in England that this spirited
resolve was first acted upon.
The three counties of Middlesex, Essex, and Surrey arrested the course
of this contagion in less than three months, by adopting this measure;
whilst in the rest of the stricken counties of Great Britain, and
likewise in Holland, where this decisive course was not taken at all,
the disease prevailed among the cattle for several years. Since that
time, it has been insisted on by some authors, that the barbarous
process of general extermination offers the most effectual remedy which,
in our present state of ignorance and improvidence, we could have
recourse to, in order to check the diffusion and the duration of this
fell disease.
The learned Goelicke describes an epizootia which was witnessed in 1730,
at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. His narrative, written with a masterly hand,
might very properly be applied to the disease which we are now
considering; and the treatment recommended by this earnest and vigilant
observer is so wisely deduced from the symptoms, that even in the
present day we might take that treatment as a model.
We could have borrowed much more largely from this source of
biographical researches had we not deemed that these quotations would be
sufficient for the purpose we had in view in this work. But from these
authorities we think it may justly be concluded, that infectious and
contagious diseases among horned cattle have frequently appeared from
the remotest times down to the middle of the eighteenth century.
All these attacks of epizootia were a frequent and severe cause of
suffering and misery among animals and men; but the ravages which they
left behind them were of slight importance each time, if we compare them
with those attending the epizootia which towards the year 1746 affected
the animal kingdom. This dreadful scourge lasted ten years, and swept
away nearly the whole race of horned cattle throughout Europe. It was
closely studied and thoroughly understood in its causes, its symptoms,
and its treatment by the scientific authors of that day, and those
writers, more judicious than we, did not designate the malady by the
title of PLAGUE. This particular visitation deserves to fix our
attention in an especial manner, not only on account of its striking
resemblance to the disease which now makes us all so anxious, but
because it induced two English physicians, Malcolm Flemming and Peter
Layard, to write on this disease two accounts or statements which are
equal, if not superior, to all the volumes which have since appeared on
the subject of the Cattle Disease. There is no help for it, and our
pride must bend itself to the acknowledgment: these two men, our seniors
by a century, were men of quite another stamp. Their expositions,
enriched with quotations from the Greek and Latin authors, abounding in
facts, ingenious insights and inferences, are far superior in merit to
the multitude of voluminous works which have been written and published
since then. It would be easy to prove that these two sagacious inquirers
far better understood than we have done the real nature of this cattle
disease, and that we must be grateful to them for first opening the way
which all of us must take in order to discover the preventive and
curative means of which we are still ignorant.
Let us observe, in passing, that these two physicians, who appear to
have been scarcely known, enlightened by the effects of the inoculation
of small-pox, then practised from man to man, appear to have first
conceived the idea, now practised in Russia, of preventing the
propagation of the contagious cattle disease by means of inoculation;
and we may raise the interest of this remark by reminding the reader
that their experiments to inoculate cattle were made in 1757, eight
years after the very year which gave birth to the future inoculation of
man with animal virus by the celebrated Jenner. By this it would appear
that the twofold honour of applying the method of inoculation as both
preventive and curative means in respect of contagion in cattle, and as
the preventive means by the variola of the cow to resist the ravages of
the small-pox in man, is the indisputable claim of English
physicians.[A]
III.
Very little is known of the origin or first outbreak of the epizootia
which produced such fearful ravages in the middle of the eighteenth
century. Some suppose that it first appeared in Tartary, where it
occasioned a disorder twice as extensive in its pernicious effects as
any similar distemper which had been known up to that time. Thence it
passed into Russia, from which it spread on one side into Poland,
Livonia, Prussia, Pomerania, and Holland, and from that country into
England; on the other side towards the East, it invaded the Turkish
Empire, Bohemia, Hungary, Dalmatia, Austria, Moravia, Styria, the Gulf
of Venice, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, the banks of the Rhine, and
Denmark.
But another opinion has assigned Bohemia as the source from which this
destructive epizootia took its rise, and its supporters allege that
during the siege of Prague the cattle feeding in its plains had been
deprived of their usual fodder by the continual _razzias_ of the French
to supply their own cavalry.
Be this as it may, this virulent cattle disease having at length
assumed the proportions of a public calamity, the several governments
were obliged to take it into serious consideration, and the medical
faculties and most celebrated physicians began to make it the subject of
their studies and reports. In France, therefore, the professors of the
faculty of Paris and Montpellier, suspending every other pursuit,
devoted their most assiduous care and attention to dumb animals.
Sauvages, the Dean of the Faculty at Montpellier, drew up a most
philosophical and learned account of the prevailing disease, in which,
like Stahl, he forgot probably for a moment the part which, in the
progress of distempers, he ascribes to the soul.
The professors of Paris, very famous in their day, but who, having left
behind them no works so valuable as the "Nosologia" of Sauvages, are now
completely forgotten, likewise addressed the result of their inquiries
and lucubrations to the King.
Doctor Leclerc was sent into Holland, whence he brought back a Memorial,
which was a reflex of the opinions he found current in Denmark, and
which has been transmitted to us in the _Memorials of the Royal Society
of Science at Copenhagen_.
It is evident from the reflections found in the writings of Malcolm
Flemming, Layard, and other competent observers, that this formidable
epizootia was in its character identical with the one described by
Ramazzini and Lancisi in 1711; and we feel warranted in saying, after
having examined every work of any importance which has treated of that
visitation, that it resembles the disease now prevailing among cattle,
in its march, in its symptoms, and in its gravity. We believe that these
three visitations constitute but one and the same malady, occurring at
three different periods. This appears to us a most important fact, for
if such be the case, the tentative treatment of that time deserves our
most particular attention. Consequently, a few retrospective glances may
perhaps be permitted us, in considering the subject of cattle disease.
The medical professors (including several English physicians), who
observed and described the epizootia of 1745, divided the same into
three periods.
The duration of the disease, when it passed through all its phases up to
the death of the affected animal, consisting of from ten to twelve days,
they usually ascribed to each of these periods or stages an average
continuance of three or four days.
_1st Period._--After a few days of latent incubation, which the observer
could not suspect, the sick animal betrayed signs of the morbid state
which was about to declare itself, by his careless feeding, by drooping
his head, and by exhibiting the deepest dejection of spirits in his
attitude and look. Rumination, already imperfect, soon ceased
altogether, the appetite failed, the horns, ears, and hoofs were cold,
the hair grew stiff, the tongue and mucus looked white; the eyes were
tearful and fixed, the hearing obtuse, whilst, in the cows, the supply
of milk diminished. In cases of unusual gravity, transient shiverings
testified to a serious disturbance in all the animal functions. These
shiverings were followed by a violent fever, the blood became inflamed,
the breath hot, the respiration hurried and sometimes attended with
slight coughing; when, if too violent a repercussion was transmitted to
the nervous centres, the pressure on the vertebral line became
intolerable, and the animal, seized with vertigo, and almost delirious
with pain, would fall during this first period, as if struck by
lightning.
The same phenomena are sometimes observed in the typhoid fever of man,
which offers moreover some analogy with the contagious typhus of the ox;
but as the ox and the horse have likewise the real typhus fever, they
may some day supply us with the preventive virus for that fever, in the
same manner as the cow now supplies us with the preventive virus for the
small-pox.
_2nd Period._--In most cases the disease pursued its course with greater
or less regularity; the sick animal experienced gnawing pains or
twitchings, and spasmodic shootings in the limbs, apparently attended
with pain. His thirst was insatiable, but he had no appetite, the
functions of the bladder and intestines were impeded, then diarrhoea
supervened, accompanied with dry, fetid, and sometimes bloody excreta.
Thick viscid mucosities dripped from the nostrils, mouth, and eyes. The
dorsal regions and the loins were constantly aching, headache and
sleeplessness were permanent. The animal continued either standing or
lying down, and if he wanted to rest, he could not bend himself
gradually, but would fall like an inert mass to the ground.
_3rd Period._--Diarrhoea was continual, becoming more fetid every day,
the wasting of flesh made rapid strides; the cellular tissue beneath the
hide was filled with gas along the vertebral channels and under the
abdomen; the nostrils were stopped up with mucosities, the animal could
only breathe through the mouth, puffing and blowing aloud as he drew in
the air; and at last pustular eruptions showed themselves on various
parts; but as this depurating crisis was insufficient, the poor beast,
in this final period of the attack, fell a sacrifice to it between the
seventh and twelfth day. If he chanced to be lying down his agony was
slow, but if standing, he would sink upon himself, and expire at once.
In this dreadful epizootia, very few of the smitten cattle survived--not
more than four or five in a hundred; and in these favourable cases, the
symptoms presented certain signs and critical phenomena of a happy omen.
In these rare exceptions, the pulse did not exceed seventy, the
beatings of the heart were always perceptible, the patient did not
refuse to drink, the continuous fever exhibited no aggravation at night,
pustular eruptions and tumours appeared on the dewlap and the fore
limbs, and the epidermis over the mouth and nostrils peeled off about
the twelfth day.
When dissected, the bodies offered to view the following alterations,
the same having already been observed by Frascator during the prevalence
of the epizootia in 1514, and by Lancisi and Ramazzini during that which
was so fatal in 1711. The mucous glands of the mouth were livid, and
occasionally excoriated; the bronchial tubes were obstructed with
mucosities; the lungs, besides being partially congested, were sometimes
emphysematous, that is, inflated with compressed air. Of the four
stomachs, the rumen was full of food, the reticulum, the omasum, and the
abomasum exhibited purple or livid spots, according to their place. The
thin intestine and the thick intestine showed either a general
injection, scattered livid spots, or ulcerations, according as the fever
had worn the exanthematous or typhoid form; for the mucous membrane of
the digestive channels, and especially that of the intestines, displays,
like the external tegument in man and the brute creation, divers forms
of inflammation, analogous with the measles, the scarlatina, and the
small-pox; so that, if the typhoid fever in man, which is nothing else
than the small-pox of the intestines, is so frequently cured, it is
because the general morbid condition, the fever, often conceals
different intestinal lesions, albeit they seem to be similar in the
general symptoms, which taken collectively constitute the disease.
The flesh of these diseased animals was blackish, and devoid of blood;
the animals which fed upon it, if uncooked, sickened afterwards, or
died. The wrecks of the bodies, and more particularly the skin,
sometimes retained a strength of contagion so deadly, that the mere
exportation of them was enough to cause its propagation, and to this
cause was at that time attributed the outbreak of the contagion in
England.
An extraordinary case of this pernicious influence, which is related by
Hartmann, who observed this epizootia at its decline in 1756, will give
an idea of the subtlety of this malignant virus.
A farmer who had lost an ox in consequence of that virulent distemper,
buried it in one of his fields. The following night a bear smelt the ox,
raked it up with his feet, ate a portion of the flesh, and a few days
after, the beast of prey was found dead in a neighbouring wood by a
peasant in the parish of Eumaki. The skin belonging to this bear was
magnificent. The peasant flayed the animal and carried home his skin in
triumph. But his triumph was short; for that same night the poor
countryman fell ill, and died two days after the attack. The magistrates
of Wiburg, having heard of this occurrence, sent orders to have the
infected skin burned. Meanwhile, the skin had been given to the curate
of the place as a compensation for the offices of burial; but his
cupidity having persuaded him that this fine skin could not have
destroyed the peasant whom he had just buried, he did not burn it at
all, but induced another peasant to clean and dress it for him. This
simple fellow and two other clodpoles, who assisted him in the
preparation, fell ill, and all three of them died in the course of a
few days. A new and peremptory order now came from Wiburg to burn this
skin, to burn the house in which it had been dressed, to burn even the
presbytery itself, should it be deemed necessary. The skin had already
passed through several hands. However, the curate being still reluctant
to part with it, took it home again. "Can it be possible," said he to
himself, "that this skin has really proved fatal to life? What can have
been the cause, I wonder?" At the same time he rubbed it in his hands
and smelt it. Unlucky curate! A few days afterwards he himself was taken
ill and died. (_Memoirs of the Academy of Stockholm._)
A native of Clermont Ferrand, in the department of Puy de Dôme, in
France, the birth-place of Pascal, one day finding an ox which had died
of the epizootia, stripped off the skin and carried it away. After his
return home, the black typhus, and then gangrene, broke out on one of
his arms, which had to be cut off, and the patient died of the effects
of the amputation.
A butcher having slaughtered an ox smitten with this typhus, sold the
flesh for meat to some soldiers of the Regiment Royal Bavière, then
garrisoned in one of the towns of Languedoc. All those who partook of
this meat were seized with diarrhoea, dysentery, and fever, and
several of the sick soldiers very nearly died. The butcher, whose
avarice had caused all this mischief, had richly deserved some exemplary
punishment, and some of the sufferers proposed that he should be hanged
outright, but the majority, more clement, sentenced him to be beaten
black and blue with horsewhips.
The popular saying, _when the beast is dead the poison is dead_, being
generally true, the virulence of the contagion, in the above instances,
possessed venomous properties of an exceptional character, for if every
sick animal slaughtered by the butchers and sold to the consumers, or
those which had been flayed for the sake of the skin, had contained so
murderous a virus in their tissues, the number of victims to the
contagion among the human species would have been appalling. And in that
case, too, similar sacrifices would be witnessed at present, for it
cannot be doubted that, in the actual state of the meat market in
London, the people are now in the daily habit of eating the flesh of
cattle which are diseased.
IV.
Physicians of different countries have naturally bestowed much time and
care in considering and discussing the nature of this epizootia, because
they have felt that a satisfactory theory and appreciation of its
principal phenomena, might afford the medical faculty a rational basis
for some special treatment.
Layard and the physicians of Geneva have considered this cattle disease
to be _a malignant fever with an eruptive tendency_.
In the estimation of the faculties of Paris and Montpellier, this cattle
disease, considered in its symptoms, was nothing more than _a malignant
fever essentially contagious_, the action of which appeared to tend
exclusively towards the skin, and therefore it was rational to provoke
external eruptions and deposits which, as they matured, diverted from
the centre the greatest part of the morbific matter.
_The treatment_, to which, above all, we invite the reader's attention
(more particularly that of medical men), necessarily varied according to
the period of the disease. It was sometimes preservative, sometimes
curative, as the case might be.
_The Preventive Treatment._--The farmers and cattle-breeders, whose
herds were still exempt from the contagion, mindful of the advice which
they received through the public press, took very particular care of
their cattle during this season of epizootia: they rubbed them over with
a brush, and washed them at least once a day; they sheltered them from
the inclemency of wind and rain; they took their milch cows, which until
then they had kept shut up in unhealthy cow-houses, into the open air of
the fields; they washed and fumigated the stables; they examined the
quality of the fodder and of the other articles of food; they added
marine salt to their drinking water, or poured salt water over their
forage; and above all, they took care that no foreign animal commingled
with their flocks and herds.
Some physicians, on their side conscious of the duty which devolves upon
them in such seasons of calamity, instead of resting satisfied with
recommending remedies, betook themselves boldly to the work, and studied
the disease experimentally in respect to its propagation and prevention.
Thus, for instance, certain Dutch physicians, in 1754, wishing to know
whether the morbid matter would transmit the disease by inoculation,
made incisions in the necks of some oxen, cows and calves, inserting in
the wound a little tow saturated with the morbid secretions discharged
from the eyes and nostrils. This direct inoculation having been
practised on seventeen animals, transmitted the disease to them all in
the course of a few days.
The English physicians having been made acquainted with these
experiments, applied them to a more practical purpose, no longer to
discover whether the disease could thus be transmitted (for that had
been proved), but to find out (what was far more important) whether this
fearful distemper could be prevented and kept off.
Malcolm Flemming, in 1755, merely suggested the idea of inoculation as a
preventive means, without proceeding to a course of experiments to
ratify his opinion. He intimates his notion in the following terms:--
"I apprehend that inoculation will stand the better chance of bringing
on the distemper, if the subject it is performed on is as young as
safety will permit, the vessels being then most absorbent, and the
animal economy most easily put into disorder.
"But even in case the inoculation of calves should be found so
successful as universally to prevail, the method I recommend will not be
altogether useless; for, by being properly modelled and adapted to
circumstances, it may, I am persuaded, prevent contagion, and likewise
act as a preparative in any epidemical affection of the inflammatory
kind, not only in horned cattle, but likewise in all other quadrupeds
that civil society may think worthy of preservation, and even in the
human species."
Layard, in 1757, devotes the seventh chapter of his work, "The Means to
prevent the Infection," to the consideration of the preventive
treatment, in which he says:--
"No one will think of bringing the infection into any place free from
it, merely for the sake of inoculating their cattle; but if the
contagious distemper be in the neighbourhood of a herd, or break out so
as to endanger the stock, the grazier or farmer may, by inoculating his
cattle, with proper precautions, at least secure his stock, since he can
house them before they fall sick, prepare them, and have due care taken,
knowing the course of the distemper.
"Sir William St. Quintin, the Rev. Dr. Fountayne, Dean of York, and
other gentlemen have succeeded in inoculation: in Holland it has both
failed and succeeded. These gentlemen all inoculated with matter taken
from the running of the mouth, nose, or eyes. Professor Swenke mentions
that the beast from which he took the matter was recovering from the
distemper. A circumstance to be attended to is this:--had matter been
taken after the crisis, from a tumour, boil, pimple, or scab, either on
the back near the spine, or on the legs, the pus would have proved much
more elaborated, subtle, and infecting than that which, flowing with the
mucus of the nose, must necessarily be, in some degree, sheathed by this
glutinous excretion, though I am well aware how putrid and acrid it is
rendered by the disease.
"That nothing may be omitted which in any shape can contribute to the
success of inoculation, due attention should be paid to the constitution
and state of the beast, no less in this practice on the cattle than on
the human species. Undoubtedly the young, healthy, and strong bid fairer
for a good issue than the old, sickly, and feeble; each of these
different constitutions demand a particular treatment, even in the
method of preparation; and however trifling it may seem to many--the
urging a necessity of preparation--I will venture to affirm that I have
seen excellent effects arising from a rational preparation, and fatal
events from want of preparation. I have likewise been witness of
unfavourable turns, merely from an injudicious preparation.
"The beasts which are sanguine require moderate bleeding; those that
have but a small share of blood must have none drawn. The strong must,
besides moderate bleeding and purging, be kept on light diet, and their
body kept open. Thus, scalded bran, mixed with their hay and chaff, will
cool them. The weakly, and such as are inclined to scour, must be kept
on dry fodder, and have peas and beans given them to strengthen them. A
mess of malt, or a quart of warm ale, with a few spices, will be very
suitable for them.
"Whatever diseases the cattle may be affected with, if time will permit,
they are first to be removed.
"The cattle to be inoculated are first to be well washed, rubbed dry,
and then curried, to remove all the filth from the hair and skin. Then
they are to be placed in a spacious barn or stable, where the air is
temperate and no cold can come to them. There they are to be prepared
according to the direction already given, foddered with good sweet hay,
and watered with clear spring water; and if the distemper be not near,
they may be turned out into the air, near the barn or stable, and may
stay there a few hours in the middle of the day.
"When it appears that the cattle are in perfect health, free from any
infection or disease, brisk and lively, neither costive nor scouring,
and chewing their cud, then the operation may be safely undertaken, and
henceforth they must be confined to the barn.
"Since there is observed to follow the greatest flow of the contagious
and putrid particles separated from the blood, wherever the infectious
matter makes an impression at first, particular care must be taken not
to inoculate near such vital parts as the heart and lungs, nor near the
womb, if a cow with calf be inoculated; for, though rowels are properly
applied in the dewlaps to draw off the pestilential humour from the
breast, and in other cases beasts are frequently rowelled in the
flanks,--yet, in this operation, as matter is inserted by these channels
into the neighbouring vessels, those vital parts, or the womb, might
become the chief seat of the disease, and the event prove fatal.
"To prevent such accidents, human beings have been inoculated on the
arms and legs, and now-a-days the arms are found sufficient. I would
recommend that the cattle should be inoculated about the middle of the
shoulders or buttocks, on both sides, to have the benefit of two drains.
The skin is to be cut lengthways two inches, deep enough for the blood
to start, but not to bleed much. In this incision is to be put a dossil
or pledget of tow, dipped in the matter of a boil full ripe, opened in
the back of a young calf recovering from the distemper. It may not be
amiss to stitch up the wound, to keep the tow in, and let it remain
forty-eight hours. Then the stitches are to be cut, the tow taken out,
and the wound dressed with yellow basilicum ointment, or one made with
turpentine and yolk of egg, spread on pledgets of tow. These dressings
are to be continued during the whole illness, and till after the
recovery of the beast, to promote the discharge; and then the wound may
be healed with the cerate of lapis calaminaris, or any other.
"On the third day after inoculation, the discolouring of the wound,
whose lips appear grey and swollen, will be a sign that the inoculation
has succeeded; but the beasts, as Professor Swenke informs us, did not
fall ill till the sixth day, which answers exactly to the observations
daily made in the inoculating of children. Yet the Professor adds that
on the third day a costiveness came on, which was removed by giving each
calf three ounces of Epsom salts.
"No sooner do the symptoms of heaviness and stupidity appear than the
beasts must have a light covering thrown over them, and at night
fastened loosely. They must be rubbed morning and evening, and curried,
till the boils begin to rise; warm hay-water and vinegar-whey must be
given plentifully. Should the beasts require more nourishment, dry meat,
such as cut hay, with a little bran, may be offered. I should be very
cautious in giving milk-pottage, even after the boils and pimples had
all come out, for fear of bringing on a scouring. However, this caution
is proper, that whenever milk-pottage be given, the vinegar-whey is to
be omitted for obvious reasons. In cases of accident, the same attention
is to be observed in the disease by inoculation as in the natural way,
and the medicines recommended are the same I would use; but by
inoculation there seldom is a call for any, so favourably does the
distemper proceed through its several stages.
"The crisis being over, it will be proper to purge the cattle, to air
them by degrees, and to have the same regard in the management of them
as is laid down in the chapter on the method of cure."
Such are the recommendations which Layard has prescribed for those who
have to practise inoculation as a preventive treatment; it would be
difficult to offer an example of greater prudence or precision.
A certain number of oxen were, by means of this inoculation, protected
against the attack of the cattle disease; and this mode of treatment
was, as we shall afterwards explain, adopted in Russia. Unfortunately,
this rational and preventive treatment was discovered only at the end of
the epizootia, when already upwards of six millions of horned cattle had
fallen a sacrifice to the contagious fever.
_Curative Means._--When the first course of the disease had left no
doubt of the attack, the sick animal was subjected to an appropriate
diet, and restricted to liquids either as medicinal decoctions, or as
alimentary beverages. The decoctions consisted of whey mixed with a
little vinegar, and nitred hay. The broths, or alimentary beverages,
consisted of a decoction of bread, and of water mixed with bran and
meal, whether of barley, oats, or wheat.
At this stage of the curative process, the majority of physicians
recommended one or two bleedings, in order to abate the violence of the
fever, and of the congestions near the nervous centres and the lungs;
and as constipation prevailed at the time, they strove with the same
object to empty the digestive passages, the intestines, and the
stomachs, notwithstanding the difficulty that exists to produce this
result in ruminating animals.
The purgatives employed consisted of a decoction of senna, mixed with
prune juice, with a little rhubarb or fresh linseed oil, infused in
their drink, or applied as a clyster in warm water slightly salted.
Those who practised polypharmacy administered at night a mixture of
nitre, camphor, red-lead, and rhubarb, in half a pailful of warm water;
and greatly did they boast of the active influence of this beverage.
Some practitioners even endeavoured, in the first stage of the malady,
to accelerate its action on the skin by giving for that purpose warm
drinks, and by covering the cattle with woollen cloths, to promote
perspiration; but it was generally admitted that the sick animals
preferred cold drinks, and that they were particularly fond of
acidulated whey.
In the second period of the distemper, the same drinks were continued,
adding thereto some theriac or Jesuit's bark, in order to lessen the
frequency of the diarrhoetic evacuations. They also provoked the
depurating secretions from the mouth, nose, and eyes, by repeated
washings; and as those animals, in which the running was most easy and
copious, seemed to be less seriously affected with the disease, they
strove to increase that which flowed from the glands of the mouth by
fixing a gag in the jaws, and keeping it there for several hours. This
measure seemed so efficacious that a decree from the Parlement de Rouen,
issued on the 13th of March, 1745, ordered the application of a gag, or
bit, for three hours every day, to the cattle under treatment.
In the third period, they sought to overcome the wasting of strength in
the system by means of tonic and nutritious drinks, decoctions of
centaury, Jesuit's bark, juniper berries, &c. They likewise administered
emollient clysters if the evacuations were bloody.
Moreover, they placed two or three setons, principally in the dewlap, in
order to obey the signs and indications of nature--_quo natura vergit,
eo ducendum_; as a salutary and critical eruption of the skin was at
that period forcing its way. These setons were kept open with a mixture
of turpentine and yolks of egg, for the purpose of encouraging the
secretion. The purulent or emphysematous tumours were cut.
But whatever means might be employed, almost all the cattle perished,
and the few and rare recoveries only afforded the pessimists the
satisfaction of claiming the merit of them for themselves. It was
remarked, besides, that the fattest beasts were the least able to resist
the effects of the distemper.
It is hardly necessary to say, that during the whole course of the
treatment, great care was taken to keep both the stables and the cattle
in a perfect state of cleanliness.
The convalescence of those animals which were cured was invariably long,
and required great attention as to their food and hygienic treatment.
Solid substances, roots, and forage were withheld until rumination
revived; and it was only after several days of encouraging trials that
the recovered animal was suffered at last to feed all day in the field,
according to his pleasure.
Such, then, was that formidable epizootia which, in the middle of the
eighteenth century, swept away upwards of six millions of horned cattle,
and which occasioned a loss to Europe exceeding fifty millions
sterling--perhaps we might say a hundred millions--for other domestic
animals, sheep, horses, &c. (as generally happens in cases of
epizootia), had likewise suffered, in different degrees, from the
various complaints arising from inclement seasons.
It was certainly necessary to our purpose that we should have taken this
retrospective view of the cattle disease, and it will afford us a
valuable guide for the future. We may now content ourselves with
bringing together the different annals in the chain of time which
elapsed between Layard's treatise, which was published in 1757, and the
present day. This chain of time amounts to 108 years.
V.
The typhus of Horned Cattle, which had shown itself in a manner
permanent, sometimes raging at one part of the globe, sometimes at
another, could not, under the unaltered conditions by which it had been
generated, suspend its ravages; and though, thanks to her isolated
position, England may be less exposed to it than other countries, it is,
however, necessary to take note of what may serve for our instruction in
the several epizootics which will pass under our view.
Medical writers relate that contagious typhus broke out several times in
Holland during the years 1768, 1769, and 1770; it also appeared in
French Flanders in 1771, in Hainault in 1773. In France one particular
spot was, at this period, completely rendered intact by drawing a
sanitary fence about its limits, and bestowing on the cattle particular
hygienic attention as a safeguard. The stables of these animals were
washed, cleansed, and fumigated; spring water was given them to drink,
their food was chosen with care, and a certain quantity of salt was
mixed with it.
In 1774, Holland, a cold and damp country, was once more invaded by the
scourge; and the Government offered in vain a reward of 80,000 florins
to any one who should discover the preventive or specific remedy for the
disease.
The typhus which, at that epoch, had likewise broken out again in the
south of France, threatened to become an abiding peril to the wealth of
nations. Two French authors, Vicq d'Azyr and Paulet, betook themselves
earnestly to the task of collecting every document which up to that time
had been published on the successive visitations of the malady, and of
offering the means of preventing it. Their intention was unquestionably
laudable, but the time for obtaining such a result had not yet arrived;
besides which, these two writers, whatever may have been their desert,
were not equal to an achievement of this character. They belonged,
indeed, to that order of men who look upon the cultivation of science
solely as a step to personal distinction.
Vicq d'Azyr himself was but twenty-five years old when he issued, in
1775, his work, entitled, "Exposé des Moyens curatifs et preservatifs
qui peuvent être employés contre les Maladies des Bêtes à Cornes." We
should deceive ourselves if we expected to find in this exposition
anything but an interesting compilation of the works already published.
Paulet's treatise appeared likewise in 1775, under the title,
"Recherches historiques et physiques sur les Maladies epizootiques, avec
les Moyens d'y rémédier dans tous les Cas, publiées _par ordre du Roi_."
Paris. Two volumes.
After reading and reflecting on this title, as servile as it is
arrogant, I might have dispensed with all examination of the work. A
scientific man, whilst in the pursuit of truth, takes orders from
nobody, not even from kings. Paulet, therefore, writing _by order_,
could only produce a work of mediocrity, and such is incontestably the
degree of value of his two volumes, forming, as they do, a fastidious
dissertation of epizootics in general, and of those relating to cattle
in particular.
The works of Paulet and Vicq d'Azyr, written at the same time, not being
the labour of men practising the medical art, are on a level as to the
notions which they have handed down to us; but that of Vicq d'Azyr
being the better of the two, we shall extract therefrom what may chiefly
interest us.
Vicq d'Azyr relates the history of the epizootics, and expatiates on the
original cause of the typhus in horned cattle, and on its nature. The
passages in which he treats of its mode of propagation and its
treatment, are the most deserving of our notice.
He says, that he tried to no purpose to communicate the disease a second
time to animals which had been fortunate enough to get cured.
That cows covered with the fresh skins stripped from dead cattle,
victims to the distemper, did not contract it.
That infected clothes which had been worn by men who had served in
hospitals where cattle were under treatment, having been laid on the
backs of several beasts in sound health, were found to transmit the
distemper in three cases out of six.
That the gases expelled from the intestines, received into a bladder
ball, and let out under the noses of healthy cattle, have communicated
the disease to them, after ten or fifteen days of latent incubation;
and that the same gases being mixed with their drink, have also
propagated the contagion.
That frictions, with the hands impregnated with virus, having been made
over the skin, did not produce any ill effects.
That some oxen which had been designedly placed for a few hours among
sick animals, have afterwards been seized with the distemper.
That a calf which had been placed in a stall containing some oxen
grievously affected, but which calf had a basket beneath its nose filled
with aromatic herbs, withstood the contagion.
That cowsheds which had been partially cleansed and fumigated,
transmitted the disease to other cattle, even several months after they
had been vacated.
Finally, he mentions the experiments of inoculation made by Lay and in
England, but not understanding their aim and capacity, he adds, that
inoculation does not seem to him of any use, since the inoculated
animals all died. Yet he quotes the encouraging results obtained by
Camper in Holland, who, out of 112 inoculated cattle, saved 41; and
those of Koopman, who, out of 94, cured 45 by this very inoculation.
He reminds us that the cattle typhus is an abiding disease in Hungary
and Russia, where the beasts having bad water to drink, can only be
protected by a constant use of marine salt (_sel gemme_); but being
deprived of this salt, when they go great distances to be sold, and
being exposed to extreme fatigue and privations, the typhus then spreads
among them. He likewise tells us that Hungary and Dalmatia, which used
to supply the markets of Italy with butcher's meat, were obliged to give
up sending any cattle there, the Italians having firmly refused to
purchase the same at any price whatever.
As regards treatment, the advice which Vicq d'Azyr gives to
agriculturists, is mostly borrowed from the authors who have written on
the great epizootics of 1711, and 1745 to 1755. Thus, he advises them to
give as drinks in the first stage, water whitened with meal and nitred;
to purge the animals with linseed oil; even to make scarifications on
the skin, and to keep up the suppuration with turpentine; to make the
animals inhale six times a day vapours seasoned with vinegar; to wrap
them over with woollen cloths; to bleed them once or twice; to
administer to them, when diarrhoea shows itself, a beverage containing
wormwood, quinine, and diascordium; to cut open the tumours containing
pus or air, etc.
It is, as is seen, the same treatment as that quoted above; he
guarantees its success, and supports his views by the authority of Van
Swieten and Huxan.
Van Swieten, however, had somewhat modified the treatment, by the
predominance which he allowed to acids; and this course seemed to him to
be only reasonable with respect to animals whose sick humours contain an
excess of alkali.
Vicq d'Azyr fixed his attention on the means of prevention, the most
effectual of which, in his opinion, was to slaughter every animal which
had either sickened, or had been exposed to the influence of the
contagion; and as he insisted that the authorities had no measures to
keep in this matter of public interest, he made it a principle that the
government was bound to compensate the cattle proprietors whose animals
had to be killed--the more so, said he, that the crafty husbandmen would
never come forward and freely declare the invalidity of their cattle,
unless some indemnity were held out to them, which they would look upon
as a sort of equivalent for the benefits they had expected by cutting
them up and selling them as the food of man.
The doctors of the period, scenting in Vicq d'Azyr a dangerous
competitor, considered the advice of exterminating the diseased cattle
as an _ingenious means of curing_ them, and as the author's age and
experience gave warrant for this satirical tone of discussion, the
public joined them in laughing at him.
The epizootic typhus, if not so destructive, was at least as frequent in
the early part of the nineteenth century, as it had been during the
eighteenth. The armies during the wars of united Europe against the
French Republic and Empire, found it constantly in their train. Nor
could it be otherwise, the two leading causes of its prevalence being at
hand. For on one hand there was the transit of large herds from the
steppes of Hungary, and on the other the wretched hygienic conditions
amidst which the cattle had to live in the campaigning armies.
Many books have been published of late years on the diseases of cattle,
in France and Germany; and several distinguished English veterinary
surgeons, especially Professor Simonds, have also devoted their
attention to the same subject. In the second part of this work, we shall
have occasion to refer to their labours.
In France, Renault, Delafond, d'Arboval, Gellé, whose works enjoy a
deserved reputation, have discussed the subject of the origin of this
disease.
Renault asserts that the disease has but one single focus, the steppes
of Russia and Hungary. The epizootics of Asia, Africa, and South America
are caused, he considers, by the importation of animals to those
countries. It is thus that he explains the epizootia which, under the
name of Delombodera, devastated the American Republics in 1832, and that
which, in 1841, appeared in Egypt. Renault thinks that neither the long
transit, nor the filthy state of the markets, nor the most wretched
feeding, are sufficient to account for contagious typhus among cattle;
that in addition to these causes, it still requires, in order to produce
and generate it among animals, a predisposition, and a special aptitude,
such as, hitherto at least, do not appear to have been witnessed except
in the progeny of the steppes.
The other professors of his fraternity have submitted arguments to him,
which to us seem very rational; and we will endeavour to do justice to
them when we discuss the origin of the typhus which at this moment is
afflicting England.
VI.
These historical dissertations and speculations on the subject of the
bovine epizootia certainly deserve to draw the attention of all who feel
an interest in the malady; but how insignificant they are compared with
the concluding facts which I have still to mention, before I at length
address myself to the consideration of the epizootia which is now
consuming our herds!
The indisputable fact that so terrible a distemper as this typhus had
fixed itself permanently in Russia, and that it was causing incalculable
losses to the lordly proprietors of the steppes, as well as to the
government, roused them at last from their indifference. Then, indeed,
they urged the veterinary doctors to adopt some energetic means to
arrest the long duration of the scourge, and we must admit to their
honour, that various experiments which were tried for the purpose of
preventing the evil, have been crowned with complete success. Any one
may ascertain the fact by referring to the _Journal Magazin_ of Berlin,
in which the learned Professor Jessen of Dorpat has explained the
results of these important experiments.
The Russian veterinarians having observed that the oxen which had been
cured of the typhus could mingle with impunity with the infected herds,
conceived the idea of communicating the complaint to sound cattle by
means of inoculation, and thereby to shield them from the contagion.
The first experiments in the inoculation of _Tchouma_ or cattle typhus,
were made in the year 1853, by order of the government, in the
neighbourhood of Odessa, at the Heridin farm, by Professor Jessen.
The first inoculative attempts were very fatal; they caused the death of
all the inoculated animals. But it was soon perceived that these
grievous results, far from prejudicing the theory, really confirmed it;
and that the virus, attenuated in its toxical properties, would prove as
effectual as was expected. And truly, in 1854 and 1855, at the Dorpat
establishment, the inoculations made with a better selected virus
afforded results less disastrous. At Kozau they were still more
satisfactory. In fine, passing from experiment to experiment, they
arrived at the conclusion that it was necessary to inoculate several
heads of cattle, the one after the other, without having recourse to any
other virus than the first inoculated, so that they might thereby obtain
virus of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and up to the 10th generation. The
virus thus attenuated in its morbid effects answered at length every
experiment, and oxen thus inoculated could mingle with impunity with
diseased cattle.
At the veterinary establishment of Chalkoff they inoculated, during
eight meetings, 1059 animals with virus of the 3rd generation, and the
results were as satisfactory as could be wished for, only 60 animals
having sunk under the effects of this preventive operation.
The inoculations made in 1857 and 1858 on an estate belonging to the
Duchess Helena, at Karlowska, in the government of Pultawa, and
conducted by the veterinarian Raussels, likewise afforded the most
satisfactory results.
Professor Jessen thinks it certain, that beasts born of cows which have
been afflicted with contagious typhus do not contract the disease. He
maintains that Europe may be preserved from this frightful scourge, by
taking care that no cattle be exported from the steppes of Russia save
those which have had the distemper either naturally or by inoculation,
and he is striving to propagate this opinion, and to render it
practical, by having all the cattle inoculated, without exception.
It is deeply to be regretted that counsels so prudent have not been
heeded in the 47 governments which, out of the 53 possessed by Russia,
have generated the contagious typhus; for then it would not so
frequently have effected its passage into the neighbouring states, and
England most probably, would not now have to take up arms against its
fatal extension.
VII.
We here conclude that part of our labour which includes the history of
this disease, and what we have been able to glean from those medical
writers, and others, who have given us the results of their experience.
It may have appeared somewhat protracted, but it has at least laid open
to the student the antecedent investigations of our predecessors, under
calamities of the same kind, but considerably more fatal than what has
yet been witnessed in Western Europe during our time. We have
disinterred and brought to light the forgotten works of conscientious
and competent men. Like Brunelleschi, the architect, we have sought, not
to invent a theory, but to recover a practice; and thus we have received
the observations and precious facts, and finally the preventive
treatment, of other men and other times, which had coped successfully
against the cattle disease when its ravages were infinitely greater.
To resume, then: these inquiries (which we undertook without
anticipating so rich a harvest) have proved, and made evident--
That the contagious typhus afflicting horned cattle, has spread its
destructive principle over our globe ever since there have been animals
living on its surface.
That from century to century, not to say from year to year, it has
carried its terrors amidst nations and peoples.
That the remedial measures which had been taken and applied prior to the
middle of the eighteenth century, were utterly powerless either to cure
this disease or to prevent it.
That at that period appeared two English physicians, men of remarkable
aptitude and penetration, one of whom, Malcolm Flemming, laid down in
theory the bases of a preventive treatment; whilst the other, Peter
Layard, applied this theory to practice, by inoculating sound and
healthy animals with the morbid virus of the typhus, in order to protect
them from the fatal effects of the contagion.
That this all-important progress in medical experience, has been
absolutely forgotten; so much so, indeed, that the experiments of
inoculation, tried in Russia only ten or twelve years ago with perfect
success, do not seem to be connected by any link with those made in
England a century before, and that the invasion of the so-called
CATTLE PLAGUE in 1865 seemed to some men to have introduced a
new scourge, which men were not armed and prepared to meet--which they
were powerless to cure, or to stay in its progress.
These inquiries, then, have proved, we think, that we are not so
helpless as we had imagined to resist the evil. But we cannot help
feeling, that we have laid bare in this exposition some most distressing
inferences concerning the human mind. For, in truth, can anything be
more deplorable, than thus to see the civilized nations of Europe
endure, from century to century, these reiterated outbreaks of cattle
typhus, and to see likewise that no man of sufficient energy and
independence has yet arisen to tell the truth fearlessly to the
governments and peoples, however painful that truth may be, and to
expose the futility of the measures hitherto employed to arrest the
scourge?
And, on the other hand, is it not most afflicting to see discoveries of
indisputable value buried out of view, submerged in public libraries,
utterly unknown and forgotten, like their authors, to such a degree,
that the distemper which they have made known in its entirety, and which
is as old as the world itself, seems to us almost new in 1865?
God send, that these cruel trials and severe lessons which the past has
bequeathed to us may teach us something for our benefit! May the
irresistible might which is derived from the auspicious union of capital
and intelligence supersede the vain and flimsy efforts of isolated
energy! May the government, which lavishes hundreds of millions upon the
destructive engines of war, devote some portion of its ample means to
the study of hereditary infections and contagious diseases! For these
fatal epidemics decimate men as well as cattle, and we may at least ward
off from our children the desolating disease which at present afflicts
ourselves.
We possess already every requisite means to protect ourselves from the
formidable visitation of these diseases: we have science; we have the
men who cultivate and teach it; we have the experience of the past
added to our own. To-day, we are called upon to resist the baleful
effects of cattle typhus; but another epizootia may come to-morrow, and
strike our horses and our sheep--those domestic animals which constitute
our most precious possession. The cholera hovers about us. If we do
nothing, if we talk and debate instead of acting, these scourges will
come upon us on a sudden, and find us quite as helpless as ever to
resist their sway.
These palpable truths deserve to be further developed, and will be
treated more copiously at the end of this book. They will constitute the
complement of our work, necessarily written in haste, since the danger
we had to expose was itself so urgent and alarming.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] To assist the researches of other inquirers on this vital subject,
now so generally interesting, we may add, that the cattle treatises
already referred to--of Malcolm Flemming and Peter Layard--are to be
found in the Library of the British Museum, bound together in a single
volume, which is certainly worth ten times its weight in gold. It
contains, indeed, eight different opuscula, all relating to cattle
complaints, which scientific students may consult with real
gratification. I will here transcribe the titles of the most important
of these treatises, the pregnant expositions of the two English
physicians above-named.
That of Malcolm Flemming:
"A Proposal, in order to Diminish the Progress of the Distemper among
the Horned Cattle, supported by Facts. London, 1755."
That of Peter Layard:
"An Essay on the Nature, Cause, and Cure of the Contagious Distemper
among the Horned Cattle in these Kingdoms. London, 1757."
A great many accounts, treatises, and expositions on the same subject
appeared at the same time in France, Holland, Denmark, and Switzerland.
One, which appeared in the last of these countries, is entitled:
"Reflexions sur la Maladie du Gros Bétail, par la Société des Médecius
de Genève. 1756."
SECOND PART.
This Part is divided, as already stated, into four chapters.
CHAPTER I.
_On Typhous Diseases in general, and the Typhus which affects the Ox in
particular._
By following the example of those authors who have described the
contagious typhus of the ox, we might proceed at once to explain its
symptoms, and go directly to our purpose; but, by taking this hasty
course, we should expose ourselves to be imperfectly understood by the
majority of our readers, and to leave certain doubts in the minds of
physicians as to the nature of the disease and the propriety of its
treatment.
All animals, including man himself, are born with a predisposition and
liability to contract a certain number of contagious febrile diseases;
they bear in a manner a certain number of physiological elements, which
might be called latent germs, and which, under given conditions, become
the leaven of these diseases. This must, indeed, be the case, since
after these disorders have been once developed those who have been cured
of them are not apt to contract them again, the morbid developments
having destroyed that natural aptitude which had previously existed to
undergo the morbid action of the contagious virus. These diseases are
not numerous; they constitute a very distinct class, and the same laws,
which regulate the phenomena in one of them are applicable to all the
rest.
These diseases exhibit the following characteristics: 1st, a period of
incubation, during which the whole economy, more particularly the blood
and humours, experience very important changes and modifications; 2nd, a
febrile state, which varies in its continuous or intermittent types, and
in its intensity, according to the species of the animals, and which
proceeds from the alteration of the blood; 3rd, a revulsion at once
toxical and congestive towards the nervous centre, inducing _stupor_;
4th, a flux of mucus from the mouth and chest; 5th, a more intense,
congestive, and inflammatory flux or discharge from the external or
internal teguments--the skin or the mucous membrane of the digestive
channels; 6th, a period of adynamia and dejection, with a tendency, in
some cases, to a critical or salutary rejection of the morbid matter by
the development of tumours or abscesses in the skin; 7th, they are at
once infectious and contagious, epizootic or epidemic; that is to say,
they are transmitted in different degrees by contact, by inoculation,
and at a distance by the means of vitiated air; 8th, finally--and this
is their leading characteristic--_they are not subject to recurrence_,
each individual that has once been affected, losing in general all
aptitude to contract the disease a second time.
This last characteristic, when well understood, ought in reason to
induce us to have recourse to the preventive treatment, and such has
been the case with respect to the most virulent amongst them--small-pox
and the typhus of the ox.
Prompted by these principles, which are as logical and fixed as any
mathematical deduction, I suggested in 1855 that inoculation should be
applied in typhoid fever, which is nothing else but the equivalent of
intestinal small-pox, in order to prevent the disease in men. But if the
simplest truth sometimes requires a contest of ages before it is heard
and understood, I could not hope to fix attention on a fact which might
be taken as problematical. I felt that I was outrunning time, and that I
should neither be heard nor understood; and so it has proved.
Be that as it may, these typhous diseases have, as is seen, their laws
and foreseen development. They attack animals generally, but chiefly
herbivorous animals, endowed, as we have shown in the first part, with a
vital resistance which is, relatively speaking, very inconsiderable.
These febrile typhous diseases (whether their development is caused by a
spontaneous morbid action in the patient or by an evident contagion),
have a period of incubation during which the vital strength undergoes
latent morbid modifications, though not sufficient to indicate, save in
times of epizootics and epidemics, the particular form which is about to
reveal its symptoms in the course of a few days. This period of
incubation being over, the mouth and chest become affected, and fever
declares itself; and then the _materies morbi_, which is to become the
special and dominant characteristic of the distemper, is directed either
to the skin, or to the digestive mucous membrane. In the first case, we
see evidence of exanthematic diseases, which present only the lightest
forms of detersive disorders, such as measles, scarlatina, or that more
serious one, from its pustulous form, the small-pox. In the second case,
the elimination takes place from the intestinal canal, and then we see
produced in animals, as well as in men, the typhous diseases: that is to
say, the typhoid fever--a pustulous and ulcerous malady of the
intestines--or the common typhus of the hospitals, prisons, and
campaigning armies; and again, in animals, there is also the typhus of
the steppes, of the marshes, &c.
The Eastern pestilence, the plague of Rome in the age of Antoninus and
the plague of Athens, which might have given to Hippocrates the right
of treating with Artaxerxes as one potentate treats with another, ought
perhaps to be classed among those typhuses not subject to recurrence.
As for the _cholera_, it seems to be a contagious and epidemic disorder,
of a distinct and particular kind. We are ignorant of its essential
cause, its nature, and its mode of treatment; and although it has
prevailed in every age, and even frequently of late years, it will
always, by reason of the strange formation of our medical institutions,
find us as weak and defenceless to resist its attack as we have ever
been.
If we have been properly understood, typhous diseases are, above all,
general febrile affections. At one time the _materies morbi_, or
discharge, affects the skin; at another, the digestive mucous membrane.
When it acts upon the skin, as clinical observation shows, there is
sometimes a sort of hesitation in the eruptive process; people wonder
what disease is coming forth; the eruption wavers in the form it will
assume, till at length its real character is determined. The same
uncertainty prevails when the intestines are affected. Sometimes the
exanthema is merely the equivalent of simple measles or scarlatina of
the intestinal mucous membrane, and many typhoid fevers of short
continuance are nothing else in their nature. The same occurs in common
typhuses. Sometimes the local affection proceeds as far as pustulous
eruption, sometimes only to exanthematic rubefaction; hence the various
alterations which we have witnessed in the intestines of cattle killed
in our presence at the slaughter-houses of the Metropolitan Market, and
which we ourselves dissected. The experienced Professor Bouley, from the
Ecole Vétérinaire of Alfort, near Paris, whose visit must have been
beneficial to England, clearly recognised in an ox which was slaughtered
and dissected at the Metropolitan Market, the genuine pustule of typhoid
fever. But in most cases, as we shall show, it is the other forms which
prevail.
We make these observations in order to anticipate the objections of
those reasoners who, being more influenced and guided by the local facts
and by the symptoms, than by the general phenomena of comparative
pathology, might argue that such or such fact is opposed to our
doctrine.
In a word, then, typhous diseases have their types; but the living being
is subjected to so many different influences, hereditary, idiosyncratic,
climataic, hygienic, &c., that by the side of one subject going through
the course of morbid phenomena with fatal regularity, another may be
seen in which such or such functional derangement is readily
distinguished. Thus in some animals, predisposed thereto by prior
disorders, the morbid action originally propelled towards the channels
of respiration will continue to be most salient; and after dissection
the lungs will be congested and emphysematous, and the intestines
relatively but scarcely altered. The animal, indeed, though bordering on
typhus, will sink under the effect of functional derangement in the
breathing passages. In others, by the influence of some particular
predisposing cause, disorders of the nervous centres will be signalized;
a cerebral and spinal pains will be intolerable, delirium will quickly
ensue, and the asphyxiated patient, if a man, will succumb in the course
of a few days; or if an ox, he will be wild and ungovernable, and then
fall as if thunderstruck, fastened to his stall. Finally, in other
cases, these first two phases of the distemper will not prove fatal, the
intestinal injuries will pursue their course, and the affected animals
will not die until the third period.
As we have seen, the morbid phenomena may be different, although the
affection continues the same; the typhoid fever or the typhus being
nevertheless the essential disease which prevails.
These generalities, to some readers, may appear irrelevant, but let them
not be mistaken; they have a claim to our notice, and are really
important. They show, indeed, that independent of the preventive
treatment, which is an absolute rule in the case of virulent,
contagious, and non-recurring diseases, the treatment of the disease
itself, when it has declared itself, and when it pursues its course,
cannot be the same for every patient; and that, moreover, this treatment
must vary in the different phases of the disease, as physicians and
veterinarians are well aware.
These generalities, likewise, explain the various diseases--viz., those
in which the animals blend together the typhous and exanthematic
diseases. The measles and the scarlet fever, affecting the external or
internal membranes, are like the first steps of these maladies; they are
generally slight, and we have but to watch over the progress of the
symptoms, and to assist nature, which, with few exceptions, brings all
things to a favourable issue.
These disorders, which are relatively slight and do not provoke in the
economy any of those changes which in some sort transform the
constitution, are not absolutely proof against relapse. They lead us
rationally and by degrees to the more infectious and contagious
diseases, to the common typhus; therefore it is unnecessary to apply the
preventive treatment to them, that being exclusively reserved for the
latter.
Let it then be well understood, that the typhus of the ox, the study of
which we are about to enter upon, may vary in its symptoms and
post-mortem appearances, without losing thereby the characteristic mark
which renders it a thoroughly distinct, and, in the present day, a
thoroughly well known distemper.
Now that the reader possesses these general notions of the Contagious
Typhus, we shall be able to speak to him in a language which he will
understand, and give a definition which he will be able to judge and
appreciate.
The typhus of the ox, then, is a _virulent, contagious, febrile, and
non-recurring disease, with stupor and derangement of the nervous,
respiratory, and digestive functions; leaving various changes in the
respective organs of these functions, and chiefly in the intestines_.
This new definition seems to us to be more faithful and just than those
hitherto given; and this, if needed, we could demonstrate.
I do not disguise from myself that some of the opinions expressed in
these generalities may, at first sight, appear strange and liable to
objection. Thus, it may be argued that inoculation as a preventive
treatment of typhous maladies is far from being a general law,
applicable to every case; since in Russia, for instance, where this
inoculation is practised every day, it completely fails in certain
foreign herds, and they die of the consequences of the operation; and
that this, therefore, might happen in England.
To these objections we would reply, first, as regards the novelty of
opinions expressed, that we have taken up the pen, because we had to
write something different from what has already been published in known
works, otherwise it would have been our duty to remain silent; and
secondly, as regards the inefficacy of inoculation, that organic and
vital phenomena have their principles and their laws, which are fixed
and invincible, from which it is reasonable to deduce consequences and
positive rules of conduct, which cannot yield to superannuated opinions
or imperfectly executed experiments. To institute experiments indeed
under the rigorous conditions of a logical and irrefutable
demonstration, is not so easy a matter as may generally be thought.
For our part, the principles deduced from strict observation are the
basis on which we build, and if it so chance that we are baffled in our
experiments we vary them indefinitely; and if still we are deceived in
our hopes, we ascribe the miscarriage to our impotence, to inadequate
means, and to the defective instruments which the physical and chemical
sciences, still in their cradle as regards organic matter, supply for
our use. Above all, we wish it to be remembered--"_Scribo nec ficta, nec
picta, sed quæ ratio, sensus, et experientia docent._"