Moreover, it is necessary to tell you, that sheep and horned cattle are

of all living animals those which are most sensitive to the influence of

contagious diseases. Every year you see instances of this fact in your

own fields and meadows. Your sheep, you all know, easily contract the

small-pox, worm diseases both on the skin and in the interior of the

body; your oxen have aphthous diseases, disorders of the blood and the

lungs, scabs and carbuncles--diseases which are all more or less

contagious, and which are generally brought on by want of care, and,

above all, by improper feeding: by which you see how much of the

sufferings of the cattle, and of the heavy losses to you which follow

them, depends upon yourselves and may be avoided. Besides, these poor

creatures, which some of you treat so harshly, are extremely

susceptible, and the blows they receive may easily affect their whole

mass of blood. You must, therefore, for your own sakes, treat them more

kindly and gently.

Therefore, the typhus which was imported from Russia into England,

finding your cattle in such wretched conditions of cleanliness and

health, was propagated amongst them with fearful rapidity. When once the

disease had developed itself within your sheds and stalls, it would have

been the wisest plan immediately to kill the sick cattle, or to treat

them medicinally, carefully abstaining from driving to market any of

your beasts which had been exposed to the contagion. But unfortunately

you did not act in this manner; many amongst you could not put up

patiently with your losses, and only consulting your private interest,

to the detriment of the general good, you sold your sick cows and oxen,

and sowing the contagion about the country and through the markets, the

scourge was soon scattered in every direction, so that instead of

stifling the disease at its birth everything was done to propagate and

diffuse it.

Now, if we add, that the germs of this typhus penetrate everywhere, that

it is sufficient to convey sick cattle along the public roads, and by

this means to pass near farms and meadows containing healthy cattle, to

transmit the contagion, that these noxious germs impregnate your own

clothes, the fleece of sheep, and every article, implement, and vehicle

used in agriculture, you cannot but see how often, though unwillingly,

you must have disseminated the evil far and wide.

The germs, the miasmata of the disease, insinuate themselves not only

upon animals and men, but they shed their virus upon the grass of the

fields, the walls of the stalls and stables, and every agricultural

utensil. Every tainted animal scatters the pestilential and contagious

germs, not only by the air he expires, but by his droppings, and after

death by his mortal remains--his hide, his horns, his entrails, his

flesh--all of which disseminate the deadly germs into the atmosphere,

which afterwards diffuses them in every direction.

The germs of this virulent distemper have no doubt smitten some cattle

which appeared in the best health and conditions, those of the rich as

well as those of the poor; but, just in the same manner as the cholera

chiefly fixes itself upon the sickly, the ill-fed, the unclean, upon

those who live in crowded dwellings and badly ventilated rooms; so, too,

does the typhus choose its victims among the stalls and stables of those

graziers who keep their cows tied up for years to the rack, giving them

neither air nor exercise, and feeding them, not on that diet which their

health requires, but on those things which add to their milk and

increase their flesh. It follows, of course, that the greater number of

these cows, more or less disordered by this long course of baleful

treatment, and many of which die of consumption, after their

deteriorated milk has infused into men the seeds of diseases, must

afford an easy prey to the typhus, _to receive which they seem almost

expressly to have been trained_.

It is highly important then, farmers and graziers, that you should be

able to recognise this ox-typhus; in the first place, that you may take

the necessary measures to prevent its contagion; and secondly, that you

may apply the treatment which shall have been recommended to you.

You must at all times, but above all when the contagious disease is

raging, keep a watchful eye on your cattle. If you notice in their gait,

in their looks, about their ears, any unusual signs; if they seem to you

less eager, less active, less vigilant, if they leave any part of their

rations when in the stables, or if, when in the fields, they no longer

browse with that continual alacrity which sometimes it is difficult to

divert them from, be upon your guard, and dread the outbreak of the

complaint. If to these changes of minor importance is added an appetite

really less acute, if the rumination is less regular, if the animal

looks sad and dispirited, if he exhibits an unwonted look of gloom, if

his leaden eye continues fixed, astonished, be sure a morbid change is

inwardly at work, and that this cruel distemper is spreading through his

frame.

By-and-bye the animal loses his appetite more and more; rumination is

shorter and less frequent; he holds his head down, his ears sink and

fall; he grinds his teeth. Then as to the cows: their milk, which was

already diminished, suddenly dries up altogether, and that lowness of

spirits which had been visible for some days before, passes into stupor.

If at this time you touch their horns, their extremities, their hide in

any part, you find that all these different parts are sometimes warm,

sometimes cold. From this day forward you will witness, one by one, a

succession of disorders in the animal's health: partial shiverings at

the attachment of the fore and hind limbs, loud panting breathing, with

slight cough, the urine scanty and thick, the droppings hard and

constipated, and finally, general excessive warmth. If you press the

back the pressure will be painful, and all the signs of intense fever

will be manifest.

Already these indications have divulged the nature of the malady you

have to deal with; but others more significant succeed them which remove

every doubt. The breathing becomes more hurried and oppressed, more

puffy; from the eyes, nostrils, and mouth there issues a discharge

which, thin and irritant at first, soon becomes thick and purulent, and

of a fetid smell. Diarrhoea takes the place of constipation; the

sexual organs of the cow are red and inflamed, and furrowed with livid

streaks. The cattle grow leaner and leaner, some of them dying at this

period. If they still hold out, the diarrhoea becomes more frequent,

more fetid, and sometimes bloody; gases are developed under the skin,

along the spine, where they form wide flat tumours, which crackle when

pressed upon with the fingers. Finally, the mucus which runs from the

head becomes still thicker and more fetid; a glutinous foam stops up the

mouth; the eyes, filled with humour, sink in the orbit; the bodily

warmth decreases, the animal sways his head from right to left, becomes

insensible, cold; his head lolls on one side, and he dies, panting, from

exhaustion and asphyxia, the tenth or twelfth day after the disease has

been confirmed.

The carcass exhibits a repulsive appearance; the hide is dry,

excoriated, and cracked; it sticks to the bones, which show the form of

a skeleton, and the putrid decomposition, which had already set in

before death, seizes rapidly on all the tissues.

The course of the disease is not always the same. Sometimes the animal

is agitated at first, and all the functions of life are so disturbed

that death comes on in the two or three first days. At other times, the

lungs are more affected than the other internal organs; the cough is

more intense, the breath hurried and obstructed, the excess of mucus

preventing the air from passing into the chest.

When once you have seen this disease it is impossible to mistake it for

any other, unless it be the chest complaint called peripneumonia, which

is likewise contagious. But in this disease, as the Report of the Royal

Agricultural Society states, the attack is generally insidious; the eyes

preserve their vivacity, and the appetite is not lost until towards the

close. A short, dry cough shows itself from the outbreak, and persists.

The breathing is frequent and painful; the sides of the chest when

struck with the fingers give out the hard, solid sound of a full barrel,

this percussion being painful. The eyes, nose, and mouth do not

discharge those purulent secretions seen in typhus; the diarrhoea only

comes on at the end, being less frequent and fetid. In the milch cows

the milk decreases, but is not quite suppressed. The heat of the horns

and lower extremities is retained. The peripneumonia, in a word, runs

its course more regularly, and carries off the animal about the fourth

week. Thus it will be seen that the two distempers widely differ in

their symptoms.

Every beast which dies of the contagious typhus, bears on its digestive

organs the traces of the malady, more or less strongly marked. The third

and fourth stomachs and the intestines exhibit red or livid patches, and

at other times ulcerations.

The cattle plague is by far the most formidable malady which can affect

animals. When left to itself, or treated without discernment, it carries

off ninety cattle out of a hundred. In prior visitations, especially

that of 1750, when six millions of horned beasts were swept off in

Europe, England lost from three to four hundred thousand; and we may

suppose that the number of cattle which have perished since last June

exceeds sixty thousand.

_The treatment_ is very difficult, owing to the contagious character of

the disease, and it has given rise to much discussion. In some

countries, the governments, considering the distemper incurable, only

seek to stamp it out wherever it may appear. They slaughter all the sick

cattle, and even those which had come near them, allowing a compensation

of half the value of the beast. This measure has not always proved

successful, the disease having in spite of it sometimes extended over

the whole of the country thus defended from its diffusion.

England protected by the sea, and which has been spared for a century,

was taken somewhat unawares, so that some uncertainty has been witnessed

in the measures employed to arrest its course. In some districts, the

parties interested have had the good sense to form assurance funds; and

it is much to be regretted that the same plan has not been adopted for

the metropolis.

But we cannot help what has been done; let us, therefore, be reconciled

with the past, and see what is best to be done in future for the

interests of all. What is the present state of the matter? A certain

number of districts, both in England and Scotland, are still exempt from

the typhus; in others the disease is generally extending its ravages.

Those districts which hitherto have been spared, should institute

assurance funds, and take every precaution to secure themselves against

this scourge. In France, in Belgium, even in Great Britain, some places

managed, in 1750, to successfully protect themselves by prohibiting the

importation of any foreign cattle or animal. These preventive measures

may now be taken with some chance of success in certain parts. Ireland,

which, thanks to the published Orders in Council, seems to have escaped

up to this time from the contagion, shows us the effectual results of

these sanitary measures.

As for the districts already infected, it is of the highest importance

to send no more tainted beasts to the different fairs and markets,

otherwise the distemper will spread indefinitely: the unsold cattle, the

sheep, the pigs, which are placed only a few yards apart, must

necessarily convey the contagion everywhere. It would even be necessary

at this time not to collect oxen and other animals together in the same

markets; we urgently invite the attention of all public authorities to

this most important question.

At all events, the farmers and graziers who, after all the cautions they

have received, all the orders which have been published, and all the

dangers which have been clearly exposed to them, should still persist in

driving their cattle out of their abodes, would deserve censure, and

ought to be heavily fined. The best they can do, since the contagion has

not been prevented, is to submit their cattle to the treatment which we

are now going to explain to them in detail.

It has been abundantly proved by the many convictions at the various

police courts, that the flesh of cattle seriously diseased has been sold

to the consumers, to the great injury of the public health; and if the

cholera, which is steadily and surely advancing towards us, should mix

its fatal germs with those of the ox-typhus, we must all expect

deplorable consequences, in case the flesh of tainted oxen should

continue to be sold by the butchers, as during the last three months it

has been.

Every farmer or grazier who shall have fully ascertained that the ox

typhus has insinuated itself into his farm or his stables, must

instantly have recourse to the necessary measures and safeguards by

means of which he may limit its pernicious influence, and prevent the

spread of the contagion to his other cattle still sound and healthy. Let

him immediately divide his stock of animals into three classes or

lots--the first class must consist of healthy cattle, having had no

direct contact with the infected beasts; the second class must contain

those cattle which, though not yet sick, may become so, because they

have been in contact with those tainted; the third class will be

composed of cattle smitten with the typhus.

The sound and healthy cattle forming the first class must be removed

from the farm, and driven to the field separately, by some other road,

in different pastures, and only after the dispersion of the morning

mists. Those which are accustomed to continue at the rack must be taken

out twice a day, for the twofold object of taking wholesome exercise,

and allowing their stalls and sheds to be cleaned.

Their feeding must be attended to and watched with very particular care;

the rations of those which were being fattened up must be decreased, and

they ought to be sold to the butcher for consumption as soon as

possible. Let the following provisions be added to their daily

sustenance:

Pounded oats 4 pounds.

Pounded juniper berries 1 pound.

Powdered gentian 1 ounce.

Sulphate of iron 2 drachms.

Carbonate of soda 2 "

The herdsman who tends the cattle whilst feeding in the fields must have

them cleaned every day: he will carefully wash and scrub them; he will

not allow them to drink out of the ponds, or at any stagnant and muddy

watercourse.

Those belonging to the second class must receive the same strengthening

and tonic ration in the morning; and, twice every day, one of the

following anti-contagious preparations: either a solution of _chlorate

of potash_ or of _permanganate of potash_; two drachms of either of

these salts dissolved in eight ounces of warm water, mixed afterwards

with a gallon of an infusion of sage or hyssop, just at the time when

the drink is given to them.

Or you may employ, for the same purpose, a solution of arseniate of

soda--two grains dissolved in four ounces of water, and mixed with

their drink in the same way. You need hardly be told that these doses

must be reduced one half, when you have to treat a calf or a heifer, and

that the same diminution will hold good, in their cases, for all other

medicaments. _The use of these anti-contagious drinks is of the highest

importance; I recommend you earnestly to study their effects, and to

continue them even after the distemper shall have broken out._

These drinks having no disagreeable taste, the cattle take to them in

general; should the contrary be the case, give them in a bottle as all

men who are cattle owners know how to do.

If the health of any of these animals among which the outbreak of the

typhus is apprehended should seem below the standard, you must apply a

purgative to those whose bowels do not operate well, and even have

recourse to bleeding in exceptional cases.

During the absence of those cattle which are undergoing the preventive

treatment, let the hygienic conditions of their stalls and sheds be

looked to; for no circumstance must be overlooked or neglected if we

hope to withstand the propagation of so formidable a malady. Be careful

to take out the litter every day, to wash the floor and cleanse it of

the droppings, to ventilate the place thoroughly, to fumigate it with

burnt sulphur or aromatic plants, such as juniper berries, sage,

rosemary, salted with nitrate of potash and arsenic acid; in order to

promote the combustion and give effect to its disinfectious properties.

At night, camphor or tar, or naphthaline, or creosote, or even iodine,

may be left in the stable to diffuse their vapours; all these measures

are very effectual in modifying the air.

Let us now see what must be done with respect to the sick animals

themselves.

The typhus, as we have said, when once it is developed in an ox or cow,

usually pursues its fatal course until the last period of its cure;

generally death alone can arrest its march. Besides, the disorders which

this disease produces in the various functions of the body are not the

same at the different stages of its duration. Thus, for instance, the

fever produces great excitement in the beginning, but later it produces

exhaustion. Without being a physician, a man can understand that the

treatment to be applied to these different states ought not to be the

same. We must, moreover, observe that the typhus is of all known

distempers the most difficult to treat. It requires in the doctor a

degree of skill, of practical experience, vigilance, decision, and

sureness of hand which no man can be expected to possess at the first

outbreak of the epizootia.

On the other hand, the constitution of the ox, so easily shaken,

undergoes in two weeks all the commotion which a man labouring under

typhoid fever would be subject to in a month. The phenomena succeed each

other with terrific swiftness, leaving scarcely time for us to act, or

for the medicines to operate. Do not, therefore, marvel at the great

mortality among your cattle, and at my repeated recommendations of the

preventive treatment by means of inoculation.

At the outbreak, you must reduce the violence of the fever, prevent the

derangements in connexion with the nervous centres, assuage the thirst,

empty the stomachs and intestines, which will be the principal seat of

the complaint, and sometimes let blood.

But how are you to obtain these results? By abolishing the solid

feeding, which is easily done, since the animal has lost his appetite.

Give him to drink, three or four times a day, half a pailful of a

decoction of good hay, adding thereto a sprinkling of salt; or a

decoction of wall-wort, with a drachm of nitrate of potash; or water

whitened with bran and flour, or whey, with a little vinegar. If the

animal has a tendency to cold, if he coughs, if his breathing is

oppressed, give him warm drinks, consisting of an infusion of mallow

leaves and borage, or else a light decoction of barley and oats, and

cover the animal's body warmly over.

Now, with respect to purgatives: give the animal, night and morning,

according to the effect produced, 6 or 8 ounces of Epsom salts (sulphate

of magnesia), or an equal dose of Glauber's salt (sulphate of soda),

dissolved in two pints of honey-coloured water; or 12 ounces of linseed

oil in some warm drink; or a decoction of senna leaves and prunes, with

an ounce of sulphate of soda added thereto.

We might point out a larger number of purgatives, but we shall desist

from so doing. Those which we have just prescribed, not being irritant

to the intestines, are the best which can be employed.

If the animal is very restive, if he passes through alternate fits of

dejection, stupor, and great excitement, you must have recourse to

bleeding, particularly local bleeding, by opening the small veins of the

head. If the excitement does not abate you must add, night and morning,

to one of his drinks, 2 grains of extract of belladonna, or a half ounce

of powdered belladonna leaves. If the fever, at first, is irregular, and

tends to become malignant, you must then have recourse to sulphate of

quinine, 20 grains in the morning, and the same quantity during the day.

When the disease is principally seated in the lungs, add to one of the

pectoral drinks 4 ounces of oxymel of squills, and 2 grains of opium,

giving also an emetic--5 grains of tartar-emetic to 4 pints of water--to

be taken in four times, at intervals of two hours.

Whilst this medication is applied to the internal organs, let the animal

have unusual care taken of him; let his head be washed several times a

day with vinegar and water.

Such is the course of treatment to be adopted during the first three or

four days. It must be, of course, followed methodically, watching and

obeying the signs of nature. The purgatives must not be given on those

days when the sick animal is bled, and the doses must vary with the

effects they produce.

From the fourth to the seventh day the symptoms change, diarrhoea

shows itself, and the running appears at the nose, mouth, and eyes; you

must then continue the use of purgatives, but the dose must be weaker.

Those mentioned above are suitable in every way. The drinks, too,

continue the same. Sometimes, at this period of the disease, the animal

is utterly cast down, nothing can draw him from his stupor: he lies down

the whole day; in this case you give him acetate of ammonia, from 1 to 6

ounces, in a pint of water, gradually increasing from 1 to 2 ounces a

day, according to the effect produced; and meanwhile, plain

non-acidulated drinks should be administered.

At this stage of the disease it is right to assist the depurative work

of nature. This is effected by inserting a seton in the neck, and the

secretion of this issue is kept up by means of such an ointment as the

basilicon with powdered cantharides. Finally, the mouth, nose, and eyes

must be washed very often with an infusion of camomile and sage.

At the last period of the distemper, the beast sinks into a state of

general exhaustion; his life seems all but extinguished through excess

of weakness. You must now sustain and keep him up by every possible

contrivance; give him bitter and stimulating drinks, beer diluted with

water, adding thereto some powder of Peruvian bark, or sulphate of

quinine. This is prepared by steeping in 8 pints of boiling water,

Peruvian bark, gentian root, centaury leaves and flowers, and hops, 1

ounce of each; or else prepare a drink consisting of veterinary treacle,

extract of juniper, 1 ounce of each, dissolved in 2 ounces of alcohol,

and then mixed with 3 pints of water.

When the diarrhoea becomes fetid and bloody, give, night and morning,

a clyster composed of a decoction of Peruvian bark, and a teaspoonful of

powdered charcoal from the poplar, well sifted. If the running from the

nostrils begins to stop, you must inject into the nasal orifices some

spoonfuls of a sternutatory solution, thus composed--

Spanish pepper 1 ounce.

Essence of turpentine 1 "

Camphor 2 drachms.

Vinegar 2 pints.

Should any sores form on the skin, or should they arise from the opening

of purulent deposits, dress them with the following ointment--

Acetate of copper ½ a drachm.

Calcined alum 20 grains.

Sal ammoniac 20 "

Camphor ½ a drachm.

Common ointment ½ an ounce.

If the natural heat diminishes greatly, if the chill reaches the hams

and skin, let the beast be rubbed all over, three times a day, with

wool, moistened with the following liniment--

Laurel oil ½ an ounce.

Green soap ½ "

Volatile oil of lavender ½ a drachm.

Solution of ammonia ½ "

Simultaneously with the above, give the following cordial, to be drunk

in two draughts--

Cinnamon ½ an ounce.

Extract of gentian 1 ounce.

Red wine 2 pints.

Should the animal fall into a state of lethargy, you must have recourse

to strokes of fire, according to surgical usage.

This distemper must extend to its extreme degree of gravity before it

advances towards its cure; you need, therefore, not despair until the

last moment. At this period of exhaustion, the drinks above-mentioned

are given up, or you add nutritive beverages to them, such as beef-tea,

fat soups, milk, and farinaceous drinks.

If the animal holds on, and his appetite returns, which will be shown by

the desquamation of the nostrils, by the return of rumination, by the

habit of the beast to look right and left, to question you in a manner,

add cut straw to his nutritive drinks: send him out every day into the

open air, and let him return by slow degrees to his habitual feeding.

But it is extremely important to watch the intestinal functions; to

diminish and change the food, if the diarrhoea returns; as such

relapses often cause the death of an animal considered out of danger.

Such, then, farmers and graziers, is the treatment to be opposed to the

ox typhus: it is simple as respects the remedies, and I have deemed that

it ought to be so, in order that the medicines prescribed might be had

everywhere, and at a cost which the poor man could command as well as

the rich. The disease is variable, it is not always equally deadly; and

there comes a moment when in some sort it cures itself, with a little

assistance and watching. The great point is, to be careful and vigilant,

to attend to nature and the instincts of the suffering cattle, and lend

yourselves to both.

I cannot reproduce here the instructions given by the Privy Council to

protect your cattle from contagion, and above all not to propagate it,

but I shall refer you to Doctor Thudichum's _Memorandum_, page 257. This

exposition is too complete to need anything added to it by me; study it

well; let it be your monitor and guide; read it over again and again;

your own interests and those of the whole country depend on the manner

in which you shall treat this admirable warning.

There are in this disease, as in every other, unforeseen varieties and

complications, such as those which are brought on by the gestation and

abortion of cows, and those proceeding from prior disease; for these

accidents you will provide. Moreover, such a terrible distemper can only

be treated according to the advice of a professional man. Call him in,

then, follow his advice and prescriptions with rigid exactness, and do

not attempt to do better than he; and, above all, arm yourselves against

the insidious pretensions of quacks and charlatans, whatever mantle they

may put on to hide their ignorance.

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 Diseases generally, but Epizootic and Epidemic

Diseases in particular._

The epizootia of bovine typhus which is now extending its unrestricted

ravages over this island, and which has assumed the magnitude of a

general calamity, has naturally excited and stirred up the public mind.

Thoughtful and earnest men could not look on and witness unmoved the

ever progressive march of the scourge; but each observer has,

consistently with his means and qualifications, striven to find a remedy

to resist the evil. Thus, we have seen, and with respectful interest we

have watched, the gentlemen of the press, and other men of letters,

economists, scientific men, and, above all, physicians, producing from

day to day in the newspapers articles and letters of remarkable merit

on the all-engrossing subject of this epizootia. The re-opening of the

medical colleges furnished the skilful professors at their head with a

seasonable opportunity to consider this dire distemper, according to the

views of general pathology and medical philosophy, and this they have

done with unquestionable talent and ability. Still, something remains to

be said on this important matter, and since I have taken up my pen, like

others, I wish to mingle my voice with that of my brethren, and inquire

whether the time is not come to avail ourselves more fully than we have

done yet of the grand discoveries of the exact sciences, which, with

respect to the science of medicine, are the instruments of its progress.

And my object in doing so, is, that we may, as far as possible, rise to

a level with the ordeal which the future may have in store for us.

Medicine is at once an art and a science. An art it has been at all

times, and in every age of civilized man; but it became a science only

when human knowledge had acquired a certain expansion; when natural

phenomena had been tested and explained; when mathematics, physics,

chemistry, botany, general anatomy, general pathology, had enabled the

inquiring physician to study with important results whatever belongs to

his theme; to understand the serial chain and connexion of bodies with

each other, in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and to

investigate their immutable laws. Uric acid, as we see with the

microscope, will always crystallize in rhombohedrons, according to a

fixed law; the vegetable cell, the germination of a seed, must obey, and

always submit to, the innate and indestructible forces inherent in them.

That which is true in the vegetable is true in the animal world, as

regards the pre-established order which regulates and controls the

phenomena of life. These laws which govern the development of organic

phenomena being immutable and everlasting, permit the different

generations which succeed each other on our globe to build upon a

durable basis, which certifies to the slow and laborious, but

irresistible march of human progress.

Medical science being in truth only the application of other positive

sciences to the preservation of health and the cure of diseases,

continues like them to perfect itself incessantly; but all it can do is

to follow them at a distance, and it can never hope to reach their

degree of superiority.

These are truths which have been long admitted and felt by us.

Therefore, we have appealed for assistance to the discoveries of the

natural sciences: physics, chemistry, have in our hands become effectual

means of observation and analysis; and we, in our age, gain more

knowledge in fifty years than our forefathers did in several centuries,

for they were then necessarily rather artists than scholars. In a word,

medical science or biology is constituting itself, and if it be fully

conscious of its impotence in the case of many diseases, it also knows

its progressive improvement. It is striving to achieve the highest place

among social institutions, and the day may come when it shall obtain it,

for nations will then owe to us their health and life--that is to say,

their earthly happiness.

The laws by which organic phenomena are regulated, are, we have said,

everlasting; we may also declare that they are general. One of these

laws common to the plant, to the shell, to every species of vertebrata,

reappears in man, whose organization comprises all the functions divided

among the other organic kingdoms. Not only does the organization of man

obey the laws which govern the vital phenomena of other animals; not

only does he possess their organs and functions, but he is a tributary

subject to their diseases. So that the knowledge of the laws affecting

the functions and diseases of those creatures which are placed below him

in the scale of animals ought to be the first foundation of all medical

study.

These truths are too manifest to be new; they are written and professed

everywhere, and every one amongst us has received general notions of

comparative anatomy and physiology at the beginning of his course of

study. But let us admit that these notions only served to expand the

circle of our knowledge and ideas, and that we seldom or never apply

them to the practice of our art. It would have been very different had

we received at the beginning of our medical novitiate, not merely in

theory and books, but practically and experimentally, precise notions of

anatomy, physiology, and, let me add, of the _pathology of all

animals_. Let us suppose for a moment that the task had been imposed

upon us before entering upon the study of human maladies, to observe the

structure of plants and animals, to submit their tissues to

microscopical examination and chemical analysis; to study experimentally

all their functions and diseases, and acknowledge that had such been the

case, the anatomy, physiology; and pathology of man would have been far

better understood, and that most of the difficulties against which we

now contend in vain in our helplessness, might easily have been

overcome.

Comparative anatomy and physiology are the first conditions of all

medical instruction of a serious character; there can be no doubt on the

subject, but the evidence being not perhaps so palpable with respect to

comparative pathology, it will not be useless, therefore, to enter into

fuller particulars as to this subject.

We know not whether any one has ever sought to retrace the first origin

of our diseases in the animal kingdom, but it would undoubtedly be a

study of great scientific interest. As for us, we gladly believe that

man, created to be the sovereign lord of the earth, did not originally

receive the principle of every organic disease with which we see him

affected. It seems to us probable that he was created sound in body and

in mind, but unequal is his vital powers, and in his faculties and

talents, the social functions being various and dissimilar, and subject

to physical and moral infirmities. We think it likely that plants and

animals, from which, in course of time, man's substance is formed, have

transmitted the first causes, the germs of some organic diseases with

which they were themselves affected. We see in this transmission of

animal diseases to man, a connecting link, which appears to us to be a

condition of harmony, order, peace, and happiness among all living

beings. It seems to us that the first injunction of a legislator should

be--_love other animals like yourselves_; for if man had practised this

maxim, he would have logically applied the same to his fellow-creatures;

and no doubt, with such principles to guide them, past generations would

not have bequeathed to us the innumerable calamities we have had to

deplore.

We think that we receive from animals some of their diseases, because

the fact is palpably evident; thus they have parasitical diseases, such

as favus, tænia, psora, trichinosis, which they transmit to us. They are

likewise smitten with small-pox, typhoid fever, and with typhus; and

under certain given conditions they may transmit them to us. They die of

consumption and cancer, and it is probable that they transfuse into us

through their milk and flesh the germs of these diseases. Finally, we

have our epidemics as they have their epizootics; and here we will limit

our instances of this reciprocation.

It is certain that the study of these maladies in animals would have

been for us the source of precise knowledge, which, if well understood

and explained, would have often led to their preventive treatment. This

is what has occurred in the case of small-pox; it is what will one day

occur in typhoid fever, in times of epidemic, as will be the case in a

certain number of other general or local diseases.

In truth, some complaints now looked upon as inherent to the human

species, were originally foreign to it; most parasitical diseases

belong to this class. Thus man has not the _psora_, or itch--the

disease does not properly belong to him; the parasite which engenders it

is not bred in him, it is always transmitted to him by animals. It is

the same with the tænia, or tape-worm, with the trichina, or fine

hair-worm.

Medical science, instituted on the bases of comparative pathology, would

have made the study of diseases in the brute creation, not the

collateral, but the principal object of its inquiries. It would have

applied itself to the cure of the lower animals; and whilst learning to

cure them, it would have ensured the cure of men's diseases.

If such be the case, can any one believe that the treatment of diathetic

and hereditary maladies would be, as they still are, insoluble problems;

and that the physician would have the misery of seeing decimated, whilst

he helplessly looks on, a large part of the population, condemned

inevitably to die of consumption and cancer? Would every man smitten

with hydrophobia be irrevocably condemned to death? Assuredly, it would

not be so.

That the physician should have been reduced to the painful necessity of

confessing his want of means, when medicine could be nothing more than

an art, we admit; but now that science has grown up and come of age,

society has a right to challenge him to do, what in past ages could not

have been expected of him. Briefly, we think that the time is come, by

blending comparative pathology with anatomy and physiology, to construct

one of the bases of the tripod on which medical science will have to

rest. The success which has already been achieved in this direction is a

certain guarantee for those which we may hope for hereafter.

Such is our deep conviction, and perhaps we have some title to speak out

decidedly on this point, as we have long since exemplified our precepts

by actual proofs.

Persuaded for many years that comparative pathology afforded to

industrious men a new mine, rich in precious veins for working, we

several times endeavoured to explore this fertile field. But,

unfortunately, our means of action not being consistent with our

sanguine expectations, we were repeatedly compelled to suspend our

pursuits, until at last we found at the Ecole Vétérinaire d'Alfort, the

favourable opportunity and the essential conditions of which we had so

long been in quest.

Grieved at our helplessness to stay the ravages of pulmonary

consumption, I formed one day the resolution to study that wasteful

complaint in animals in order to discover, or at least to look for, the

required remedy. With that view, I confined in a dark, cold, and damp

cellar a number of animals to practise on: birds of different species,

rabbits, a monkey, a dog, &c. To these animals I dealt out a deficient

quantity of food. The monkey, as might have been expected, was the first

to be affected, since in our climates they all die of consumption. Next,

and for the same reason, it was the parrot's turn; then the chickens and

ducks died; after them the rabbits;--in fine, at the end of fourteen

months, the dog alone survived. All the rest had sunk under consumption,

and exhibited tubercles in different organs--in the lungs or mesentery.

It was then necessary to have the counter-proof: to place a second set

of animals in the same conditions, to produce the disease again, and

attempt its cure. But the first experiment had been a long one, and I

was forced to relinquish the inquiry, which, moreover, was above my

means at that period.

On another occasion, it seemed to me strange that we should be obliged

to open the bladder of patients suffering from the stone, or to subject

them to lithotrity, which has also its perils. Nature, I said to myself,

forms calculi by uniting organic elements, by crystallizing them, and by

cementing them with vesical mucus. But would it not be possible to cure

the disease by employing contrary means--dissolving the calculi in the

bladder by means of continued injections, changing the chemical agents

according to the composition of the calculus, and adding thereto the

action of a galvanic current?

After this, I pursued my inquiry in this direction. I studied for

several months the chemical composition of calculi by examining them in

their dissolved state; and I saw that those in which the alkaline bases

prevailed, being submitted to a diluted solution of tartaric acid, which

would not injure the bladder, crumbled after a time; that the calculi

with excess of acid were also attacked by an alkaline solution; in

fine, that the calculi of oxalate of lime alone seemed to resist the

action of these chemical solutions. But it is well known that they

sometimes defy all lithotrite instruments, and compel us to have

recourse to the knife.

These preliminary experiments over, it was necessary to come to their

application, and for that purpose to make experiments on some animals.

The canine species, omnivorous like ourselves, was chosen in preference.

Bitches were selected to be practised on; for as their urinary passages

are wider and more flexible, it enabled me to insert in the bladder

fragments of calculi already analysed, which were to serve as the nuclei

to the stones they were intended to develop.

This second assortment of animals, penned up apart from each other, were

supplied with different modes of sustenance: some of them were put upon

a diet of meat only, others on a farinaceous diet, and a third set on a

mixed course of food. These experiments were being regularly followed

up, when an important and unforeseen event compelled me to desist at the

end of six months. The poor animals were destroyed; but all of them, as

I had anticipated, had generated calculi of various chemical

composition.

These unfinished inquiries concerning comparative pathology, thus

interrupted in spite of myself, might, had circumstances allowed them to

reach the goal, have authorized us to undertake in man the dissolution

of stone in the bladder. And how would this have been effected? By

seizing the stone between the two ends of the catheter with the double

current, and by injecting a well-sustained series of dissolvents into

the patient, whilst lying at his ease in a recumbent posture.

Nor is this all. They would likewise, I believe, have thrown some light

on the organic production of calculi, on the lithic diathesis, and the

particular formation of the stone; and led us, in some degree, to their

preventive treatment, which is always superior to the curative remedy.

On a subsequent occasion, I betook myself to my task under more

favourable conditions. I undertook at Alfort, conjointly with Professor

Delafond, a course of experiments on the cutaneous diseases of animals

in relation to comparative pathology, having already, whilst walking

the hospitals, published a work on the "Entomology and Pathology of

Psora in Man," which had been printed at the expense of the Academy.

These inquiries and examinations at Alfort were persisted in for five

years, and were considered to have led to very satisfactory results as

regards general pathology. But I have spoken of these labours in the

first part of my book.

Pardon me, reader, and do not suppose that vanity or any desire to

parade myself has induced me to refer to these experiments. No; my only

object is to show to what results similar studies might lead, if they

were executed on a large scale and on the whole animal kingdom; if,

instead of these partial efforts made under favour, some special and

appropriate medical institution encouraged earnest experimentalists,

supplying them without stint with all necessary resources, and with the

best and completest instruments of observation.

Will any one deny, that if medical science had been settled on this

foundation fifty years ago--that is to say, since the exact sciences

first began to provide us with the means of investigation, it would now

be so impotent? Epizootias and epidemics would not thus flout us as they

do; the cholera would no longer be an enigma, nor the ox typhus so

incurable. No! a hundred times no! Medical science would not he helpless

and impotent in our day, had our forerunners been more mindful and

provident.

But, instead of this, the science for which we plead would have done

good work. It would have made and confirmed an infinite variety of

observations on the brute creation; it would have transmitted our

diseases to them as they transmit their diseases to us; it would have

treated and cured these diseases, and every such cure would have been a

new triumph, a new victory for mankind.

For instance, during an outbreak of cholera, this science would have

been ready and prepared to try different experiments on men and animals;

it would first have communicated the cholera to animals, and then

submitted them to a variety of experimental treatments. This cholera,

which is not an infectious fever, with its regular and assigned periods,

like typhus, and which we are not obliged to suffer to run its course,

but which, on the contrary, is a nervous affection produced by some

poisonous miasma, the toxical effects of which first of all assail the

nervous system and then more particularly the great sympathetic; the

cramps being but the result of a reflective action--_this cholera, we

say, must be curable_, and well-advised experiments would reveal the

remedy we want for it, nor should we have to wait long for the

revelation.

As for me, I once made a desperate attempt in this direction. It was

during the cholera of 1854. We remarked whilst dissecting subjects, as

is always the case, that the mucous membranes of the stomach and

intestines, which were in a manner paralyzed, had suffered the fluid

parts of the blood to ooze out on the surface. Hence the cause of those

vomitings, and those watery and colourless diarrhoeas which nothing

can stop, so that at a given moment the patients die, poisoned, of

course, but dying more particularly through want of circulation, the

blood being reduced to its solid parts and unable to circulate any

longer. Relying on this fact, and trusting for want of better to the

secondary effects, I strove to restore to the blood its aqueous part,

and, if possible, to re-establish the circulation.

With this view, I went to the Hôpital de la Charité, provided with all

the requisite instruments. Choleraic patients were being brought there

every hour. The experiments being new, venturesome, and _dangerous_, in

the eyes of the hospital directors, I was only suffered to operate on

the moribund. The first patient, considered to be in a state

sufficiently desperate to be given up to me, was a woman, forty-five

years old. She was literally insensible, and thoroughly cold. I

hesitated for a moment to try the operation under conditions so

unreasonable, so preposterous--almost upon a corpse. The radial arteries

in the arm had ceased to beat, and the heart alone kept up a feeble

circulation at the central parts. At length I opened the vein, from

which not a single drop of blood proceeded, and taking the usual

measures to prevent the air from having access, I gradually and slowly

injected two ounces of alkaline solution, the process of injection

lasting twelve minutes. It was scarcely over before the patient

half-opened her eyelids, and looked about her with astonishment; the

pulse became perceptible for a few moments, and all present thought she

was saved. We put a few questions to her; the patient could not answer

us, but she nodded as much as to say "yes," when asked if she felt

better. But this was all we could do in her case. The circulation

stopped again, the patient relapsed into her state of insensibility and

died two hours after the injection.

The result obtained in this instance had not answered our expectation.

However, the circulation had for a minute or two resumed its course, and

a flash of reason had once more shown itself.

I thought the experiment ought to be repeated, and accordingly the next

morning I made another trial. The patient this time was a working

shoemaker, thirty-eight years of age, exactly in the same far-gone,

hopeless state as the patient of the day before. In his case, the inward

commotion caused by the injection was more powerful; twenty minutes

after the injection he was able to see, to understand, to speak, to

raise his head; but this vital recovery was, as in the former case, but

of short continuance, and two hours and a half after the operation the

man expired.

After these experiments I dissected the two bodies, and then, finding

that their lungs were infiltrated with water, I understood that the

alkaline solution had not been assimilated, that it had stopped in its

passage into the pulmonary parenchyma, to the detriment of the functions

of the hæmatosis. I also understood that the proper injection, instead

of distilled alkaline water, would have been the serum of the blood,

drawn at the very moment from some man or animal.

The conclusion which I drew from these experiments was that a variety of

operations, made at different stages of the malady, might lead to

beneficial results, especially if we succeeded in transmitting the

cholera to animals, as that would enable us to test a large number of

curative agents and to pursue a methodical course of experimentalization.

From all I have said, I infer that life, health, and disease, being

subject to the same laws throughout the whole animal kind, it is certain

that the physician should possess precise knowledge as to the

organization, the functions, and diseases of animals. That by proceeding

in this manner, we shall advance from the simple to the complex, from

the plant to the animal, and from the animal to man. That we must of

necessity emerge from the state in which we are now entangled BY FOUNDING

AND ESTABLISHING IN LONDON A COLLEGE OF THE NATURAL AND MEDICAL SCIENCES.

Every medical pupil might spend two years in this college, receiving in

it an experimental and practical training; he would devote himself in it

to the chemical analysis of all bodies, to physiological experiments and

tests, without limit and of every kind.

Most deeply do I appreciate the many difficulties and obstacles that

would interfere with the execution of such a design. In our civilized

age, nations seem rather bent on seeking out the means of exterminating

each other than of protecting themselves and animals from epidemics and

epizootias. It is believed that every first-rate kingdom now spends from

400 to 500 millions of francs (16 to 20,000,000_l._) annually in

maintaining their land and sea forces, whilst one-half of their

populations are living in misery and ignorance, in disease and

corruption. The time is not come--shall we ever see it?--to employ the

vital powers of the peoples, to better incessantly their social

condition. Perhaps, by reason of its organization, the Government of

this country would not be authorized to devote 100,000_l._ or

200,000_l._ to the establishment of an institution like the medical

college I suggest, notwithstanding its paramount necessity. But England

is in the habit of doing great things independently of the Government.

In default of the ruling powers, then, let me appeal to the national

initiative, for if the spectacle which we are at present witnessing was

not, in the case of England, one of those trials which invigorate a

people by the salutary teachings which they bring; if it did not induce

them to take some energetic resolution by which their interests would be

saved and their power enlarged, it would indeed be a deplorable sign of

the times and make us despair of its future.

Moreover, to show the urgency of founding a _College of Natural and

Medical Science_, let us add, that in every other country they are

endeavouring to unite this indispensable complement to medical

education. The German universities, the Faculty of Paris, have, for

several years past, incorporated a course of comparative pathology, with

the other series of public lectures.

It is not a mere Utopia that we propose, but an extension and

improvement, all the parts of which are already prepared. If this

College could be thrown open to-morrow, competent professors would be

ready at the call of duty to indite the programme for this instruction

within twenty-four hours; and as for the professors themselves, there

would be enough to choose among the large body of efficient scholars who

do honour to the country.

If we have been rightly understood, we desire to see established in

London an institution which would afford an equivalent to what exists in

Paris, at the Museum and Collège de France, where numerous courses of

lectures on anatomy, physiology, physics, and chemistry are given. Only

in London this special college would be formed and organized on such a

scale as to bear away the palm from every previous foundation of the

same kind; it would be an institution unexampled in the world, out of

whose halls would one day come anatomists, physiologists, and

pathologists of the very highest order of excellence.--But organic

matter would not be the sole object of this instruction, for the animal

is something more than matter. Courses of medical history and

philosophy, of really general pathology, would introduce the students to

the grand phenomena of nature, to the great laws which govern the worlds

and the globe; and descending from the heights of science to the

observation of the infinitely minute, they would never forget the

important part of the vital powers, and of that unknown power called at

different times by the names of +pneuma+, _archéc_--_mind_ and _soul_.

The Regent's Park would, we think, be the proper site for this college,

as the contiguity of the Zoological Gardens would afford continual

opportunities for investigating the diseases of animals.

Moreover, this college would not trench upon or interfere in any manner

with those medical and veterinary establishments which at present exist;

it would ally itself with, and complete them, nothing more. The

instruction received at this "College of Natural and Medical Science"

would be so useful and necessary, and so attractive withal, that the

sons of the great families would come to it to finish their collegiate

studies, to the great benefit of the country. Other young men, in

considerable numbers, would flock to it from various parts of the world.

The foundation of such an institution would be an epoch in the history

of science, and would give England another claim to the esteem of

nations.

I conclude, then, with a conviction that a nation which owes to Lord

Bacon, the founder of experimental philosophy, his imperishable book on

the _restoration, the method and teaching of the sciences_; to Harvey,

the circulation; to Priestley, the constitution of chemistry; to

Sydenham, the modern Hippocrates, his treatise on "Practical Medicine";

to Jenner, vaccination; and to Charles Bell, the discovery of the

sensitive and motor nerves--is a people too great and too enlightened to

retrograde; and that, if the epizootic of ox typhus did find them at

first unready and disarmed, they will in the end convert this disaster

into a new source of greatness and strength.

Such is the sincere hope which I cherish and the prayer I offer up for

the happiness of a country which, for the future, has become my own.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

BREMEN, August 30.

The following report, drawn up by two German veterinary surgeons, of a

recent visit to London to examine into the cattle murrain, has been

furnished by the agent of the North German Lloyd's at Nordenhamm:--

"On Wednesday, the 9th instant, we, the undersigned, were requested to

be at Nordenhamm, if possible, the following morning. Upon our arrival

we were asked by the agent of the North German Lloyd's, who had

consulted with several of the chief cattle exporters, to undertake a

voyage to London at once in the steamer _Schwan_, in the interest of the

cattle export from the Weser. The object of our mission was, first, to

examine as closely as possible into the epidemic cattle disease raging

in and around London for some time past; then carefully to observe the

treatment of cattle upon the vessel during the voyage, upon arrival, and

at the time of disembarkation; lastly, to use every means in our power

to prevent obstacles being opposed to the continued export of cattle

from these ports to England.

"Furnished by the agent of the North German Lloyd's with letters of

introduction to cattle dealers in London, and with the necessary funds,

we left Nordenhamm in the steamer _Schwan_, Captain Christensen, at 4

P.M., on the 10th instant. The vessel carried 347 head of large

cattle, 2 calves, and 260 sheep. Favoured by very fine weather, we

arrived in the Thames at 2 P.M., on the 12th. At the beginning

of the voyage the animals were rather uneasy, trampled a good deal, and

caused considerable motion in the ship; after a time, however, they

became quiet. A sharp, penetrating smell was easily perceptible in the

'tween decks of the ship, which was quickly removed upon a light breeze

springing up, by means of the excellent ventilation and numerous

air-pipes and wind shafts. The animals were several times watered, and

it was easy to see how greatly they were refreshed. The hay in the

racks, on the other hand, was hardly touched.

"Upon arriving in the port we were introduced by the captain to the two

veterinary surgeons stationed here to inspect the cattle, and witnessed

the rapid disembarkation of the cargo, all of which were thoroughly

healthy, not one being condemned. The cattle, when landed, were

immediately brought to carts standing in readiness and transported to

London, where they are cleansed and then driven into the adjacent

fields.

"After doing all in our power to attain the object of our journey, we

went back to the port to wait for the _Schwan_, having first thoroughly

cleansed the clothes we had worn during our inspection of the diseased

cattle. The _Schwan_ came in shortly after our arrival, and disembarked

256 head of large cattle, 12 calves and 400 sheep, all in good

condition. Mr. Philipps, the London agent of the North German Lloyd's,

was on the spot, together with several reporters from newspapers, who

wished to see by personal investigation how and in what condition cattle

are brought from the Weser.

"We re-embarked on the _Schwan_ upon the 19th. The crew were engaged

during the voyage in carefully cleansing the ship. The weather was fine,

and we arrived safely at Nordenhamm upon the 21st.

(Signed)

"G. J. RIPPEN,

"Veterinary Surgeon at Seefield.

"H. FASTING,

"Veterinary Surgeon at Schwey."

NOTE B.

Professor Simonds having had such opportunities of investigating those

diseases as they existed in England and in foreign countries as were

possessed only by a few Englishmen, might be permitted to offer a few

observations. He had been appointed by the Royal Agricultural Societies

of England and Ireland to proceed to the Continent in 1857, when there

was a rumour that the disease which existed among cattle in this country

at the present time was prevailing in Mecklenburg. Consuls sent

despatches that the rinderpest was prevailing largely, and the

Government, as a precautionary measure, closed the ports against the

introduction of cattle from the Baltic to this country. He found,

however, from his observations abroad that since 1817 there had been no

disease of this kind westward of a line between Revel in the Baltic and

the Gulf of Venice, but to the eastward of that line it had existed. He

came up with the affection at the Carpathian mountains, where it was

raging in 1857 just as it is raging in England at the present time. Not

only had it existed there, but it had been carried into the interior of

Russia in the ordinary method of the cattle trade. A person who was in

the habit of purchasing cattle attended a fair and bought a number of

animals, and took them to his own farm, and in the course of ten days

one or two were seized with the disease, and the result was there was a

gradual spread of the evil in that district. It gained ground until the

Government instituted the sanitary police regulations, which, though

they were such as would be considered strange in England, were, he

believed, absolutely necessary for the extirpation of the plague. It was

undoubtedly true that no foreign animals had been seized at our ports or

in the metropolitan market; but it was not necessary for the case they

had in hand to say whether the disease was or was not of foreign

importation. There was this fact before them, that it was not until the

month of June that the disease appeared in England. A certain number of

animals came out of a diseased district. He had documentary evidence

that animals came from Revel and came from the district of Esthonia. He

had before him proof that the disease now in England was raging in that

district. They had proof that shortly after the arrival of those cattle

in England the disease manifested itself here. He admitted there were

difficulties in the way of checking the importation of foreign cattle.

The Government had its eyes open to the matter, and he did not think it

possible for the Government to have done more than they had done or to

have done more quickly what they had been doing. At this moment half the

supply of the metropolitan market came from foreign countries, and he

did not wish to convey any reflection by saying that this disease had

its origin from abroad. He would admit that the animals from Germany and

Hungary were coming in a healthy condition; but he could not admit that

they came from Russia, Poland, or Galicia in so perfect a condition,

because the regulations there were not sufficient to stamp out the

disease. The Government had made an inquiry as to the general health of

cattle on the Continent. They believed France, Belgium, Holland,

Schleswig-Holstein, Oldenburg, and a large part of the Continent that

supplied cattle to this country were free from disease. This went to

show that we had admitted a disease not from where we received our

supplies of meat, but from some other district. Then it must be

associated with the fact that it came into this country when animals

arrived here from an infected district in Russia. Animals from Germany

and Hungary were often shipped and mixed with others from a diseased

district. As regarded the disease being spontaneous, we had been free

from it for twenty years. What was the state of our cowsheds fifty years

ago? Were they not in a more filthy condition than they are now? If,

therefore, the disease had been induced from common causes it would have

been here years and years ago. It was no reflection to say that a great

many cases could be traced directly to the metropolitan market. Take one

case which occurred in Sussex. Certain cattle had been bought in the

metropolitan market and were taken home. In three or four days they were

ill, and presented symptoms of this affection. In a few days more the

cows and calves were dead. In another instance calves were bought in

Chichester Market, where they had been taken from London. The result was

the death of twelve cows and ten calves. The people had other cattle on

the same farm, and not one of them took it. He could say, too, that

persons who had only one animal had lost it by the disease. How had the

disease got into Norfolk and Kent but by the animals which went from the

metropolitan market? He could prove by documentary evidence that it was

so. He could show there was not a single instance where the origin of

the disease could not be traced to the metropolis. It was the most

fearful visitation that had ever been seen in England. They had adopted

a system of compensation in Norfolk, and if by this meeting something

was done to shut out the animals of infected districts, no doubt the

promoters would receive not only the thanks of London, but the country

generally.

Mr. Gibbins--Now, if the disease came from abroad, and diseased cattle

were shipped on the other side of the sea, no doubt the voyage would

concentrate and aggravate the disease. The Government inspectors

reported, however, that not one instance had been seen of foreign cattle

so diseased, nor had any been seized and destroyed in London or anywhere

else. Whether the disease came from abroad or elsewhere he was not able

to state. Sir George Grey asked him whether he had found any disease

among the foreign cattle that came into the market. He said not one.

They had, no doubt, many instances of the disease amongst the cows that

were ordinarily called milch cows, but that were not milch cows when

they came to market, because one effect of the disease was to deprive

the animal of milk. These were then sent to the market and sold as fat

stock. He could only say they had had no cases, except in cows, whether

they came from the dairies in London or elsewhere.

NOTE C.

M. Dembinski, Professor of Analytical Chemistry and Natural Science, had

also addressed a communication to the Lord Mayor on the subject. The

prevalent Rinderpest, he said, originated in the steppes of Podolia,

from which considerable herds of cattle were exported through the

steppes to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riga, and Revel, and thence to the

ports of Memel, Königsberg, Dantzic, Hamburg, Kiel, and the Hague.

_Deprived of congenial food and pure water on their transport through

the steppes, and then arriving at marshy lands, the exhausted animals

drank the stagnant water, which, during hot weather, exhaled a

pestiferous malaria, and infected them with a predisposition to the

epidemic in question, which developed itself into a kind of fever on the

voyage to England in a crowded condition._

NOTE D.

INTERNATIONAL VETERINARY CONGRESS, VIENNA,

August, 1865.

With regard to the cattle plague, it may be well to state that Austria

has been most unfortunately situated, from the readiness with which

Russian cattle have been admitted into the country at various parts of

the western and southern frontiers. At the opening of the Congress this

difficulty was particularly noted by the Ministerial counsellor, Dr.

Vell, who attended on behalf of the Government, for the purpose of

welcoming the assembly, and giving an assurance that its deliberations

would meet with all the attention they deserved. He specially referred

to the fact that the laws relating to cattle disease prevention had been

entirely revised in 1850, but that the Steppe murrain continued to be

introduced by smuggled stock into the western and southern provinces of

the State. It was therefore necessary to attempt a more effectual

control over the propagation of so disastrous a malady.

Herr Pabst welcomed the meeting on behalf of the Minister of Trade. He

said that the value of the cattle of the Austrian dominions considerably

exceeded one hundred million pounds sterling (one thousand million

Austrian florins), and that cattle plagues completely put a stop to the

development of that essential branch of agriculture which embraces the

improvement and increase of live stock in a country. He assured the

assembly that all would be done that was possible to improve the

existing state of matters, and that he hoped they would greatly aid the

Government by the discussions which would take place and the conclusions

at which they would arrive.

I may state, by the way, that an opinion rather generally expressed by

some, and stoutly maintained by others, was that the peculiar

disposition of some of the Austrian subjects, and the feeling existing

in Hungary against State measures, rendered the law, to a great extent,

inoperative. I can, from personal experience, state that although

stringent and most efficient means are used for the suppression of

cattle plagues, and with the best results in Austria proper, there is

great difficulty in carrying out the law in districts where Austrian

rule is at a discount. Indeed this is clearly indicated by the manner in

which the Rinderpest penetrates into Austria, where the laws are similar

to those in the kingdom of Prussia, which is, and has long been,

completely protected from invasions of the disorder.

At the meeting of the first International Congress, held in Hamburg in

1865, Dr. Röll stated that owing to the length of time to which the

quarantine for Russian cattle extended on the Austrian frontier, herds

of cattle were often smuggled through, and companies had been formed for

the purpose of insurance against seizure by the authorities. The

unlawful traffic was therefore carried on with comparative safety to the

dealers, who cared not what misfortune they brought on a country if only

their personal ends could be served. This question was the first to

occupy the attention of the Congress last week; when a resolution was

proposed to shorten the period of quarantine for cattle from Russia

into any country from twenty-one days to ten. The discussion was keen.

It was stipulated, however, that the quarantine should be carried out

most strictly over all parts of the frontier, without respect to any

breed of cattle or other circumstances which might be brought forward as

exceptional reasons for retaining animals in quarantine. The committee

appointed to prepare a succinct report on the subject included

Professors Unterberger, Seifmann, Werner, Zlamal, Hertwig, Haubner, and

Röll; and the committee decided in favour of the shortened quarantine,

on the following conditions:--First--When the establishment of

quarantine institutions is effected in accordance with the requirements

of trade and the peculiarities of the frontier, special attention must

be paid to the erection of quarantine stables, &c., where there are

facilities for procuring an abundance of fodder and water. Second--The

animals to be kept under efficient veterinary supervision wherever they

have to submit to quarantine. The inspectors must be properly qualified

veterinary surgeons. Third--The use of a brand to indicate that the

animals have been in quarantine. Fourth--The effectual disinfection, by

washing and otherwise, of animals as they leave the quarantine.

Fifth--The introduction of a poll-tax along the eastern frontiers, and

the appointment of proper veterinarians to be on the watch as to the

health of cattle along the frontiers. Sixth--Careful supervision to be

placed over the traffic in cattle wherever it takes place in a country.

Seventh--The punishment to the full extent that the law allows of all

who break the rules relating to quarantine or other means for the

prevention of the cattle plague.

Professor Hertwig, of Berlin, whose opinion is always listened to with

great respect in veterinary circles, stated his reasons for adopting

these resolutions now, whereas in 1863 he was against shortening the

period of quarantine. He referred chiefly to the importance of not

offering temptations for cattle dealers to evade the law by insisting on

unreasonable restrictions. The feeling of the assembly was greatly in

favour of avoiding vexatious and expensive measures, which might greatly

interfere with the employment of capital in cattle traffic. A small

number of professors, not exceeding eight or nine, held out for a

quarantine of twenty-one days.

It may be as well to state that quarantine regulations, which have been

regarded as almost useless in the prevention of human disorders, from

the great difficulties in the way of carrying them out efficiently, are

recognised as of great value in controlling the propagation of cattle

plagues. It is possible to control the movement of herds, and the

governments of Central Europe have found it absolutely essential so to

do. Indeed, the ablest medical men who have written against the adoption

of a quarantine system for human small-pox and cholera, such as

Professor Siegmund, of Berlin, acknowledge its value and absolute

requirement with regard to the Rinderpest. A professor from Galicia

argued in favour of controlling the movements of people wherever the

disease appeared, and no fact seems to have been better ascertained than

that of the communication of the Rinderpest from herd to herd by human

beings. Professor Jessen, of Dorpat, states that in Russia the malady

was at one time speedily propagated by the people, who regarded the

destruction of their stock as a visitation of Providence, and who

summoned a priest into their stables to pray with them that the plague

might be stayed. Moving from farm to farm, the malady was by this means

rapidly transmitted. In Hungary, many outbreaks result from people

dressing the carcases and hawking about the meat, which, even where

human beings remain uninjured, is deadly to the cattle whenever the

water with which it is washed is thrown about the yards, or the meat is

hung up near sheds containing living animals.

The members present at the International Congress spoke in favour of

establishing a fund, apart from the Government grants, for the payment

of diseased or infected animals which have to be slaughtered with a view

to the prevention of the plague. Special precautions were suggested as

to the transmission of articles the product of diseased animals.

1. Perfectly dried skins, the points of horns cut off, as they often are

for commercial purposes, the salted and dried intestines of cattle,

melted tallow, wools, cowhair, &.c., could be freely allowed to pass

unobserved.

2. Entire horns, hoofs, &c., which are detached from the soft parts, but

which often contain adhering flesh, &c., should be disinfected with

chloride of lime.

3. As melted tallow is often conveyed in bags which may be charged with

the poison, those bags should be washed with chloride of lime solution.

4. Fresh bones, fresh skins, and intestines, unmelted tallow, raw flesh,

and fresh sheepskins, should not be sold whenever the Rinderpest exists

in a district.

According to all the accounts which reach us, the foreign observations

and resolutions may be of essential service in England. The members of

the Assembly were informed by Mr. Erner of the origin and the progress

of the cattle plague in England, and were deeply interested by the

account given of the imminent danger in which many countries are placed

that purchase breeding stock in the British isles. The theories of

spontaneous origin amuse the learned here not a little, as they justly

think we ought not to be so far behind every nation in the possession of

knowledge regarding the propagation of such a disorder as the steppe

murrain.

NOTE E.

Now, if the disease came from abroad, and diseased cattle were shipped

on the other side of the sea, no doubt the voyage would concentrate and

aggravate the disease. Whether the disease came from abroad or elsewhere

he was not able to state. Sir George Grey asked him whether he had found

any disease among the foreign cattle that came into the market. He had

not one. He could only say they had had no cases, except in cows,

whether they came from the dairies in London or elsewhere. So far as

they knew, not one single bullock or ox had been condemned.--MR. GIBBINS,

_18th August, Meeting at the Mansion House_.

The very first shed in which the plague must have appeared in London is

a pattern of cleanliness, and the stock was magnificent, as proved by

the animals in a shed to which the disease has not been propagated.

Almost simultaneously the malady broke out in the Essex marshes, and in

every instance we trace a more or less direct contamination by foreign

stock.

NOTE F.

VIENNA, August, 1865.

On the 28th of August about thirty of the members of the Congress

accepted an invitation to visit the renowned agricultural establishment

at Altenburg, in Hungary. After the visitors had inspected the herds and

other appurtenances of this institution, Professor Maasch, its director,

intimated that the Rinderpest had appeared at Nickolsdorf, about four

German miles from Altenburg. The President of the Congress had known

this fact before the party left Vienna for Hungary; but as he feared

some enthusiasts would first see the plague, and then inspect the

Altenburg herds, he preferred to adopt the stratagem of communicating

the information through Professor Maasch, after the great Agricultural

College of Hungary had been viewed. Nickolsdorf, where the steppe

murrain appeared on the 10th of August, is an exquisitely clean village,

with well-whitewashed buildings and broad roads, constituting the centre

of a thriving agricultural district. Its people are typical Hungarians,

not too anxious to work, and, on the whole, poor; but they are

intelligent, notwithstanding the national proclivity to farm a thousand

acres badly rather than one-fourth the quantity to perfection. Their

wants are not great, and their worldly luxuries, beyond potatoes and

schnaps, are bought with the profits made on large herds of cattle. One

herd only had suffered from the cattle plague when we visited the

village. This herd consisted of 1225 animals, divided into three lots.

The affected portion numbered 450 animals--bullocks intended for work

and slaughter--varying in age from three to seven years. The cows and

heifers had not been smitten. The 450 animals amongst which the disease

appeared were housed in no less than sixteen different sheds in

Nickolsdorf. Out of each of these places sick animals had been taken,

and either slaughtered or permitted to die. We killed four for

dissection on the 29th. Six more had been previously killed, their hides

slacked, and the entire body buried; nine had died, and two we left in

life to be soon slaughtered and disposed of as the others. The district

veterinary surgeon in constant attendance was an extremely active and

intelligent man, who recognised the disease on its first outbreak, and

adopted such measures for separation, destruction, and burial, as

prevented the disease from spreading so rapidly as it has in England.

The cause of the outbreak was the intermingling of cattle-dealers' stock

with the Nickolsdorf herd; and although the animals which carried it

have not been fully traced, they are believed to have been owned by a

butcher who had purchased them in Comorn, where the malady is raging.

Singular variations have been seen in the symptoms exhibited, especially

when animals are first affected. During the Nickolsdorf outbreak there

has been an invariable incubation of five or six days; then furor or

delirium appears: the bullocks stare, roar, stamp with their feet, are

prepared to attack people who approach them, and seem to be dizzy at

intervals. They shiver, their muscles twitch, the eyes soon begin to

discharge, and the mucus which flows from the mouth foams. The pulse is

at first slower than usual, until all the fever symptoms appear. There

is more constipation than diarrhoea, though, on examination, the

mucous membranes are all found to be affected precisely in the manner so

often observed in England during the present outbreak. The differences

in the symptoms are accounted for by peculiarities of breed, the

condition of stalls, the food the animals have lived on, and similar

circumstances. We may hear more of these Hungarian outbreaks, but the

chances are we shall not witness in any part of Austria the wholesale

devastation now going on in Great Britain.--_International Veterinary

Congress._

NOTE G.

At present the cowkeepers send off the infected beasts to the market, or

to some slaughter-house, where they might be killed. There was believed

to be great danger in allowing the infected cows to be driven through

the streets. If the good could be separated from the bad animals, and if

the latter could be conveyed to sanitoriums, where the medical men could

operate upon them, then much benefit would result; and then, too, if the

animals died, they would be buried on the spot. All the professors were

agreed in this, that if a compensation fund were raised, and the

cowkeeper were told that he would be remunerated for his loss, he would

at once inform the authorities when the disease made its appearance in

his cowshed. Shed after shed was being now shut up, and men and women

who seemed to be affluent one day were the next reduced to ruin. An

illustration of this would suffice. One day last week a cowkeeper at

Pimlico had 70 or 80 healthy cows. On Wednesday three of them were found

dead. On Thursday 42 of them were sent to the market. Of these 42 three

showed symptoms of the disease, and then the whole of the 42 beasts had

to be slaughtered because of the disease being among the three. The poor

fellow was thus ruined. Last Monday he sent nine more cows to the

market, and these also had to be slaughtered. At present the man was

absolutely out of his mind. Out of his 70 beasts, he had not one left.

Some persons were saying that the disease arose from bad water, bad

ventilation, and bad cowsheds; but in the case of Miss Burdett Coutts,

who had had 40 head of cattle, which were most carefully housed and

attended to--particularly from the moment she heard that the disease was

amongst them--all were gone, with the exception of one cow; so that,

whether it was a want of water or a want of ventilation which in other

cases caused it, this was an instance in which everything was done that

could be done, and yet the plague raged and the mortality

ensued.--MR. GIBBINS, _Meeting at the Mansion House_.

NOTE J.

Yesterday morning Dr. Jarvis, medical officer of St. Matthew's,

Bethnal-green, received information that Mr. Castell, an extensive

purveyor of milk, had lost eighty-four cows during the past week. Other

cowkeepers in this district have also experienced great losses. The

disease has manifested itself with more or less virulence at St. Anne's,

Limehouse; St. John, Hackney: St. Mary-le-Bow, St. George's-in-the-East,

St. John, Wapping; Christ Church, Spitalfields; St. Leonard's,

Shoreditch; St. Mary, Whitechapel; St. Paul's, Shadwell; the hamlet of

Ratcliff, Stoke Newington, Kingsland, and Tottenham.

Mr. Gibbins, chairman of the Metropolitan Markets Committee, Mr. Rudkin,

a member of the committee, Mr. Tegg, veterinary surgeon to the market,

and Mr. Baldry, clerk to the market, applied to the sitting magistrate

at Clerkenwell Police Court yesterday for summonses against cowkeepers

for sending diseased cows into the market. During the course of the

present week no less than nineteen cows had been seized in the market

and fairs and condemned. The order was asked for under the 8th section

of the recent Order in Council, which recited that it shall not be

lawful to send or bring to any fair or market, or to send or carry by

any railway, or by any ship or vessel coastwise, or to place upon or to

drive along any highway, or the sides thereof, any animal labouring

under disease. The cattle seized had not been examined by a Government

inspector, and no certificate had been given to the owners that they

were fit to be removed. The market authorities wished it to be known

that proceedings would be taken in every case that was brought under

their notice. Mr. Cooke observed that the inspectors had power to seize

and slaughter, or cause to be slaughtered, and to be buried in any

convenient place, any animal labouring under the disease. Had that been

done? Mr. Tegg said that the animals were in some of the cases

slaughtered, and the others would be slaughtered in the course of the

day. The summonses were granted.

Yesterday, the summonses issued at the instance of Mr. Frederick Thomas

Stanley, a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and one

of the inspectors appointed under the Order in Council, came on for

hearing before Mr. Burcham, magistrate at the Southwark police court.

The summons in the first case was addressed to Thomas Meredith, of the

Flying Horse-yard, Blackman-street, for that the defendant, without the

licence of the said inspector, did unlawfully remove from his premises

some animals labouring under the cattle disease. Mr. Sleigh, instructed

by Mr. Gant, appeared to support the summons; and Mr. W. Edwin for the

defendant. Evidence was given that the defendant had been warned that

the cows were diseased, but that he had removed them notwithstanding.

The further hearing of the case was adjourned, as were also the other

summonses of a like nature.

In pursuance of powers vested in him by the Manx Legislature, the

governor of the Isle of Man has issued a proclamation prohibiting the

importation of cattle into the island. Tinder the same Act his

Excellency has power to subject all cattle imported into the island to a

five days' quarantine.

NOTE K.

Tracing, as we have done, the sale of infected stock from abroad as far

back as the 19th of June, we find that each week that the disease has

been amongst us a fresh county has been contaminated; and more than that

when we consider that Scotland has not escaped.

NOTE L.

SCOTLAND.--The cattle plague has travelled North to Aberdeenshire, and

has killed a number of animals almost simultaneously on three farms at

many miles distance from one another. The owners of stock in one of the

districts, and the Royal Northern Agricultural Association, are taking,

or resolving to take, sharp and prompt steps to stay the progress of the

disease. The committee of the association having met on Friday,

appointed a committee of inspection, arranged for a public meeting of

persons interested, and favourably entertained the notion of forming a

fund for mutual insurance against the sacrifices and losses which the

extension of the disease might occasion. A meeting of the General

Central Union was also held at Stirling on Friday, and a committee was

appointed to confer on the subject with the directors of the Highland

Society, and report to another meeting to be held next Friday.--

_Scotsman._

The most important communication received to-day is from Scotland. The

malady has undoubtedly broken out near Kelso, on fourteen head of cattle

imported into London and sent north. Twenty-eight animals have been

seized with the disease at Woolwich, and calves from the London market

are said to have taken the malady down to Horsham and Grinstead.

Information has been received concerning the sale of at least fifty-four

diseased and infected animals in the Metropolitan Cattle Market the 3rd

instant.

NOTE M.

Mr. Charles Panter has, at the request of Earl Granville, drawn up a

statement relative to the health of the cows on a farm hired by his

lordship at Golder's-green, on the Finchley-road. In publishing the

statement, Earl Granville says: "When I left England, a month ago, there

were about 130 milch cows in four sheds. In the two largest and best

managed I found only one cow yesterday (Sept. 4). His Royal Highness the

Duke of Coburg informed me last week that what he believed to be the

same disease visited Coburg last year. No one could trace its origin,

and no medical treatment was successful. Air and water were their only

remedies. Some men had died from eating the meat killed at a particular

stage of the disease. His Royal Highness had seen a horse die in four

hours, killed by flies which came from the carcase of a cow which had

been allowed to remain above ground. The disease disappeared in the

autumn as mysteriously as it had come. I understand that Professor

Simonds is of opinion that the disease mentioned by the Duke of Coburg

is not the same as that from which we are suffering here--that its name

is the Siberian Pest." Mr. Panter's statement is dated Sept. 4, and is

as follows:--"On the 13th of July I purchased five Dutch cows in the

Metropolitan Market, and placed them in quarantine at Child's-hill Farm,

one mile from here. On the 22nd of July one of them showed signs of

debility; diarrhoea followed. Thinking it was only a cold, she was

treated accordingly, but continued to get worse, and died in five days.

Two more were attacked in a similar way, when veterinary advice was

called in, but in five days the whole either died or were slaughtered.

Every precaution was used to prevent the spread of infection here; the

men who attended the sick cattle were not allowed to go among the

healthy ones, and _vice versâ_. But, previous to this, bearing of the

disease in the London cowsheds, I adopted precautionary measures, such

as a liberal use daily of chloride of lime, administered one ounce of

nitre in half a pint of water to each cow, and a small quantity of tar,

and painted their noses with tar. But on the 8th of August,

unfortunately, the disease showed itself here in a fat cow that had been

for ten months in the best built, best drained and ventilated shed. No

new stock had been added for nine weeks. In a few hours four more cows

showed symptoms of it. I immediately had them all removed and

slaughtered, and made a _post-mortem_ examination of them, and found the

windpipe in a state of decomposition, the lungs inflated, the small

intestines red and inflamed, and the meat of a dark yellow colour

outside, and dark red inside, which I think unfit for human food after

the first stage. The disease confined itself to the above shed of

forty-eight cows (which are now all gone) till the 20th of August, when

it broke out in another shed of thirty-five cows, some ten yards from

the former one, and continued its ravages, taking from two to four cows

daily, till they are all gone but two, one of which has not been

attacked; the other, which was a bad case, is cured, and partly come to

her milk again. On the first symptoms I had her separated from the other

stock, and did not treat her for two days, when diarrhoea set in; I

then gave her a bottle of brandy and four ounces of ground ginger in

three quarts of old ale. She lay in a kind of stupor for twelve hours,

when I could see a change in her for the better. I continued to give her

daily four quarts of gruel made with old ale and two ounces of ginger.

In four days she was sufficiently recovered to eat a little hay, &c.,

and do without further treatment. In another case the above treatment

failed, and the animal died in three days. In other cases I allowed

anyone to treat them who thought they had a remedy, both professional

men and others. One persevering young veterinary surgeon came up out of

Somersetshire and treated two cases most energetically, but failed in

both; one died in four, and the other in eight days. In other cases

tonics, stimulants, blisters, and setons have been tried, but all

failed. The whole of the eighty-one cows lost were of the English breed;

we have not as yet had any loss out of the other two sheds, consisting

of about half English and half Dutch cows, and standing about forty

yards from the infected shed. It may be interesting for your lordship

to know that I had the shed at Child's-hill Farm immediately cleansed

with disinfectants, and washed with hot lime, &c., and bought twelve

fresh cows and placed them there on the 16th, which are now in perfect

health; and a neighbour situated midway between here and that farm had

twenty-three cows lying in a field; the plague took twenty of them, and

in three weeks he replaced them with new stock, which are still healthy,

he having had them a month. Another neighbour, a mile distant, had a

fine herd of seventy-two cows (English) lying in the fields a fortnight

ago. The plague broke out among them, and now he has only eight left in

health. From my own experience, and from all I can learn, I believe the

disease is atmospheric, and of a typhoid character. The first symptom in

a milking cow is an almost entire loss of milk, then loss of appetite, a

watery discharge from the eyes, nostrils, and mouth, which thickens as

the disease develops itself; rumination ceases, her ears hang down, her

eyes are heavy and sunken, bloody matter is seen in the excrement, great

debility is seen, diarrhoea sets in, and death takes place in from

three to nine days. I have read of iron water being a preventive of the

disease. All the water your cows have drunk comes six miles through

rusty iron pipes."

NOTE N.

THE CATTLE MURRAIN AT HOLLY LODGE.--On the 27th of June an

Alderney bull was purchased at Bushey, near Watford, and placed with the

rest of the herd, then consisting of eleven cows, five sucking calves,

three yearling heifers, and one bull. The bull had been imported from

Alderney for several months. About a month after--namely, on the 29th of

July--a cow in calf was attacked with unusual symptoms. She was

separated from the rest; nourishing drinks were administered; but having

calved, she died forty-eight hours after the first symptoms were

observed. This led to the belief that she died of the disease which then

began to prevail. This cow had been pastured with the others in a field

occasionally used for grazing sheep that were taken to the Metropolitan

Cattle-market, and, if not sold, brought back again until the next

market day; the sheep were separated from the cows by iron hurdles. The

Holly Lodge Estate is partly bounded on the east by the route taken by

drovers with foreign and other cattle to and from the market, some of

which are also occasionally brought back to neighbouring fields. The

high road forms the western boundary within a few yards of the

cattle-sheds and pastures. These facts are stated to show that the

contagion might have been easily communicated to the animals. A few days

later three calves were attacked with cold shivering and twitching of

the muscles. The previous nights having become suddenly and unusually

cold and wet, the symptoms were at first attributed to that cause.

Although these calves had been pastured quite apart from the cow which

first died, the cow had been driven across the field where the calves

lay to the shed in which it died, the calves having been placed in the

next shed, where two of them died on the 6th of August, unmistakeably

of the cattle plague. The third calf was sent to the Royal Veterinary

College, where it also died. By the 9th of August four cows and the bull

were seized with the disease so virulently that it was thought necessary

to kill them after three days' illness. On the 12th a cow and a heifer

were also destroyed, and on the 14th one of the sucking calves died.

Thus, out of a herd of nineteen animals, twelve had died within a

fortnight. The malady had taken so strong and sudden a hold upon them

that no systematic means of remedy could be applied except separation,

warmth, stimulants, and the medicines ordinarily given in cases of cold

and fever. On the 13th of August two more cows were pronounced incurable

by two of the veterinary surgeons who had been called in; but it was

determined, upon further advice, to try a mode of treatment upon them

not hitherto adopted. One drachm of calomel was administered in gruel,

four hours afterwards one pint of castor oil, and three hours later one

quart of yeast. About two quarts of warm porter were added to a gruel of

yeast and oatmeal, and given at intervals. These remedies acted most

efficiently, and in one case gave much encouragement. The next day the

cow began to eat hay, to chew her cud, and to yield a good quantity of

milk. These remedies, together with bi-sulphate of soda, which

invariably produced a return of the milk, and quinine, were then tried

upon four other patients, with varied success. But in the end all these

cows died, not, it is believed, of the cattle murrain, but of exhaustion

occasioned by the activity of the drugs administered to them. This

belief was strengthened by the healthy appearance presented by the

viscera of the first cow thus experimented upon, on its being partially

dissected after death. The remaining cow thus treated is still alive. It

is impossible to avoid believing that had the medical man who kindly

gave his attention to these animals, been better acquainted with the

constitution of the creature, or had those who tended them had any

knowledge of medicine, three of the cows treated in this manner might

and probably would have recovered; and even when the animals succumbed

the consequences were less serious, the virulence of the poison being

expelled--at least it was undiscernible to those who dissected them.

During the fortnight that the murrain was raging, one cow in calf and

one calf remained perfectly healthy, apparently, until both were seized

within a day of each other; these had always been kept separate from the

sick animals, and tended by other men. The calf died, and the cow was

destroyed, in consequence of the symptoms being so violent. In this case

very little calomel was given. As it may be as well to mention all

particulars, it may be stated here that the men who tended the animals

were provided with a dress, and that it was found desirable that a

certain quantity of stimulants--brandy, coffee, and strong soup--should

be given to prevent nausea and other uncomfortable feelings from which

the men suffered. All the directions respecting the burying of the

animals issued by the Privy Council have been strictly complied with;

clothes, &c., have been burnt, chloride of lime (Macdougall's

disinfectant) was used with others to destroy insects and flies, with

abundance of white-washing. The men were recommended to use, as a wash

for the mouth, manganate of potash. The first crop of grass in the field

where the cattle lay before their sickness, and during it, has been

destroyed also; and it is intended to use some disinfectant, such as

charcoal or lime, to spread over the field. Miss B. C. feels so

persuaded that some mode of treatment could be found to alleviate, if

not to save life, that she has determined to employ a medical gentleman,

who kindly offers his services, and to take also the advice of a good

cow or veterinary surgeon, and to try the effects of various remedies in

some of the cowsheds where persons will be glad to let such experiments

be tried; and it is also her intention to ask the Privy Council to allow

one of the Government Inspectors to assist and report upon the cases. It

may not be altogether unimportant to add that the state of the

atmosphere seemed to have some effect upon the health of the animals, as

upon those occasions the symptoms were most severe during the

thunder-storms which then occurred. The milk which returned was found to

be rather watery, and the cream had a peculiar appearance. At first the

pigs declined it, and it was not thought advisable to continue to give

it at all to any animals for about a week. It is now perfectly good.

NOTE O.

Advices from Holland, dated the Hague, Sept. 6, state: "The cattle

disease has now been observed in the parishes of Kethel, Delfshaven,

Moordrecht, Uaardingen, Averschie, Kvalingen, Nieuwerkerk on the Issel

(two hours from Rotterdam), Spykenisse, Schiedam, Herrjansdam, Maasland,

Sommelsdyk, and Zevenhuisen. It has spread most at Kethel, where it

first broke out among a cargo of cattle not admitted into England. In

the other parishes some sixty animals were infected on the 1st inst. The

post-mortem examination of the diseased beasts presents the abnormal

appearances that have been found in the disease elsewhere, _i.e._,

swollen mucous membranes with red spots, peculiar exudations in the

fourth stomach and intestines, &c. The medical commission declares the

malady to be the _typhus contagiosus bovum_ of modern veterinary

surgery, and recommends that infected animals should be treated with

from three to four drachms of muriatic acid, mixed with six ounces of

treacle and decoction of linseed. Decoctions of Peruvian bark and osier

peelings, with sulphuric ether, are also said to be beneficial to weak

animals. The avoidance of all contact of the cattle-tenders with

infected beasts is especially enjoined, and ventilation and cleanliness

of the stalls strongly recommended. Cattle markets and fairs are

suspended until further orders, and extraordinary measures for

disinfection are applied upon steamboats and railways."

NOTE P.

The following document has been received at the Foreign Office from her

Majesty's Agent and Consul-General at Bucharest:--

(_Translation from the Official "Monitoral," No. 173, August 8-20,

1865._)

GENERAL DIRECTION OF THE SANITARY SERVICE.

From the 1st to the 15th July a typhus epizooty broke out among the

large horned cattle in the districts of Ilfov, Jassy, Bolgrad, Falcin,

Buzeo, and Roman, which still continues, but is on the decrease. The

Direction, in consequence, publishes the above for the information of

those concerned.

The Director-General,

(Signed) D. GLUCH.

Aug. 2-14, 1865.

NOTE R.

August 14.

THE QUESTION OF INFECTION.--Yesterday afternoon Mr. Alfred

Ebsworth, of 11, Trinity-street, Southwark, the medical officer of

health for the parish of St. Mary, Newington, attended before the

sitting magistrate to make a statement with regard to the condition of

the parish from the influx of diseased cattle, and the manner in which

they were disposed of. Addressing the magistrate (Mr. Burnham) Mr.

Ebsworth said that on that morning he, in his capacity of medical

officer of health for the parish of St. Mary, Newington, received an

order to attend professionally a man who was seriously ill in

Kent-street, within the parish. While paying the visit to the patient

his attention had been drawn to the condition of a slaughter-house on

the other side of the street, where it was reported to him there were

fifteen cows which had been ordered by the Government officer to be

destroyed at the Bricklayers' Arms Station, and then to be buried. The

animals were accordingly destroyed by the men in the employ of Mr.

George Nicholls, the proprietor of the yard in question; and from Mr.

Nicholls he had learned that, instead of the carcases of the animals

being buried, they were carted through the parish of St. George's to

Mitcham, where they were boiled down, and brought back through the

parish of St. Mary, Newington, in the shape of cats'-meat. He (Mr.

Ebsworth) felt it his duty to come before the magistrate with this

complaint, especially when the cattle plague was so prevalent. He had a

right to inquire upon what grounds the carcases had not been disposed of

on the spot where they had been slaughtered, instead of being carted

through the parish he represented, in a way calculated to spread the

infection. He could not but regard this as a most iniquitous proceeding,

and he attended with a view to prevent a repetition of the practice. Mr.

Frederick T. Stanley presented himself, and said that he was a member of

the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. He had been appointed an

inspector of cattle under the orders issued by the Privy Council. Within

the district there were no means of burying the carcases of the diseased

and condemned animals, and in the instance referred to they could not

have been buried in the cowshed. It was impossible to bury the carcases

in the London districts, and hence they were sent to the knacker's yard,

where it was supposed they would be disposed of. Mr. Ebsworth: And

that, your worship, is what I complain of. Mr. Burcham: You think that

the practice to which you have called my attention is calculated to

propagate the extension of the disease. Mr. Stanley declared that the

skins were disinfected under his especial orders. Mr. Burcham remarked

that the animals had been taken to the slaughter-house, not for the

purpose of being killed and buried, but that their skins should be taken

off and disinfected. Why should they have been taken to Mitcham? Mr.

Stanley stated that the disease could not be communicated from a dead

animal, and it was conveyed only by inoculation, or through the breath

of a living animal upon the dead body of a diseased ox. Mr. Burcham: I

do not agree with you in that opinion. I believe that infection may be

conveyed by a dead animal. Mr. Ebsworth said that such was his opinion,

and, having regard to 28,000 patients in the parish, he had felt it his

bounden duty to come forward to make this complaint. He thought such

things ought not to occur. Mr. Burcham was of the same opinion, and that

such a commodity ought not to be allowed to be conveyed through the

public streets in open carts. Just before the magistrate was about to

rise, Mr. Stanley introduced to his worship Professor Simonds, and a

long colloquy (in private) ensued between them. At its close Professor

Simonds retired, and Mr. Burcham said: I wish to state that I wanted to

be satisfied that everything was done by Mr. Stanley that could be done

under the circumstances by which he was surrounded, in the midst of

great difficulty. I have had an interview with Professor Simonds, and he

informs me that there are the greatest difficulties, if not

impossibilities, in finding any places near London in which the dead

carcases of diseased animals can be buried. In the case now before me

these animals were slaughtered at the Bricklayers' Arms Station, and

were then taken to the slaughter-house in Kent-street, under the notion

that the owner of the slaughter-house had the means of boiling them

down. It appears that he had no such apparatus, and hence he found it

necessary to send the carcases to Mitcham, the nearest place at which he

believed the carcases could be buried and disposed of, and the

neighbourhood thereby disinfected. Professor Simonds is perfectly sure

that this meat when boiled down cannot by any probability cause the

infection to spread. It was possible, but not probable, that infection

might be introduced by the carcases of the diseased animals on their way

to the place where they had to be boiled down; but it appears to me,

from what I have just heard, that every precaution has been taken to

prevent such an occurrence. It seems that the authorities cannot find a

place within a reasonable distance in which the carcases can be buried,

and, therefore, they are obliged to have recourse to boiling them down,

as the only alternative. It is right that I should add that the conduct

of Mr. Stanley, the inspector, has been quite in conformity with the

directions he has received, not only under the Orders in Council, but

also sanctioned in my presence to-day by Professor Simonds. I trust that

this statement will remove from the mind of Mr. Stanley any unfavourable

impression he may have entertained; and I will only add my opinion, that

the diseased cattle ought to be removed through these populous

districts in closed and not in open carts. The conversation then closed,

and at an unusually late hour the court adjourned.

DISEASED MEAT.--At the Thames Police Court yesterday Henry

Frost, an old man, was charged with having allowed to be deposited on

the premises occupied by him in the rear of the house, No. 13,

Sidney-street, Stepney, four quarters of beef prepared for sale and

intended for the food of man, but which was unfit for human food. Frost

carried on the business of a greengrocer. He asserted that he let the

place to other men, who were the actual offenders. It was intimated that

the vestry had no disposition to press for a heavy penalty. Mr. Paget

fined the prisoner 40s. At Clerkenwell, Mr. Tegg, inspector at the

Metropolitan Cattle Market for the City authorities applied to Mr.

D'Eyncourt for an order to destroy a quantity of diseased meat which he

purposed seizing. Mr. D'Eyncourt said the meat must be actually seized

and condemned upon evidence before he could make the order. In the

matter of the seizure of 32 quarters of beef, weighing about 3000 lbs.,

which was found on the premises of a knacker in Pleasant-grove,

Belle-isle, Mr. D'Eyncourt dismissed an application made against the

defendant under the Nuisances Removal Act. The defence set up was that

the meat was recognised as bad and diseased by the killer as soon as the

animals were slaughtered.

NOTE S.

The Orders in Council seemed only to complicate the matter, and how

effectually to combat the evil was a most difficult question. Some said

the grand remedy was the knife, and others suggested that the diseased

animals should be sent to a sanatorium. To destroy the diseased cattle

was impossible, except the owner of them or the inspector went round and

obtained an order from a magistrate for their destruction. The last

meeting was adjourned, among other purposes, in order that the committee

might take the opinion of the law officers upon the subject. It so

happened, however, that most of the law officers of the Corporation were

at present out of town. Fortunately the Common Serjeant was found, and

he gave an opinion which confirmed the committee in their view that they

had no power to kill, and no power to do anything except in the matter

of isolation. Then the committee passed a resolution that another

committee ought to be formed to raise the necessary funds for

compensating the cattle-owners, and to see that those funds were

properly applied, for the money was only intended to apply to the cattle

plague, and was not meant to go in the shape of compensation for

pleuro-pneumonia, or for the foot diseases. In other words, they were

now legislating for the cattle plague or Rinderpest only. He resided at

Dulwich, and he found that in the villages adjoining there were many

cows, and never in his life had he seen finer cows. Not one of them had

been affected by the disease. There was a cowkeeper at Peckham who had

200 cows, and all of them were in the most healthy state. At Brixton

Hill a man had 30 cows in the same excellent condition. At Dulwich

nearly all the cows were diseased, but there the shed and other

accommodation was exceedingly bad. In parts of Peckham Rye some of the

cowkeepers had lost their cattle, but there again the places were badly

ventilated, and the cows were badly cared for. He believed that the

disease might be prevented by the use of proper precautions on the part

of those who had the greatest interest in keeping their cows in a

healthy state. He believed, too, that this question affected the whole

of the metropolitan district quite as much as it did the City itself.

There were no fewer than 106 head of diseased cattle lately seized; but,

as he said before, they could not be killed without an order from a

magistrate, and a magistrate would naturally feel a difficulty in

issuing an order to kill so many as 106 head. It was necessary, under

such circumstances, that a deputation should wait upon the Home

Secretary and ask him to provide a remedy, and tell the authorities what

they were to do at such a crisis. If, as it now appeared, the inspectors

and the markets' committee had been slaughtering beasts without

authority, who was to pay the costs should proceedings against them be

commenced? Professor Simonds seemed to think that next session a bill of

indemnity would be introduced, and certainly something of this kind was

rendered necessary, for cattle were now coming here which were consigned

to A., B., and C., and then the owners could not be found, and without

the consent of the owners the diseased beasts could not be killed. The

next subject in the report had reference to slaughter-houses. As there

were no places at present to which cattle in an incipient stage of the

disease could be removed from the sheds in which they were placed along

with untainted cattle, it was now proposed that slaughter-houses should

be established in London for their reception. Then came the question,

how were the beasts to be removed from the sheds to the

slaughter-houses? It was the opinion of many that they ought to be

removed in vans, and not driven through the streets; but, however that

might be, slaughter-houses should be erected in the metropolis where the

tainted animals might be killed. Then came the question, how was an

animal to be dealt with when first stricken with the disease? It was

suggested that hospitals or sanatoriums should be provided, to which the

beasts should be sent. But this was a matter of great importance, to

which the attention of the committee to be appointed and that of the

medical men would have to be directed. If the plague went on it would

affect all classes, rich and poor alike, and instead of meat being as

now at a reasonable rate, it would go up 4_d._ or 6_d._ per pound; but

he had hopes that the disease might be checked, particularly as

Professors Simonds and Gamgee had been more successful in the treatment

of it than they had previously been.

NOTE T.

August 31.

DEPUTATION TO THE HOME OFFICE.--Yesterday afternoon the Lord

Mayor proceeded from the Mansion House to the Home Office, and had an

interview with Mr. Waddington on the subject of the cattle plague, and

the desirability of establishing hospitals or sanatoriums within the

metropolitan districts for the reception and medical treatment of

diseased cattle. His lordship was accompanied on the occasion by the

following deputation from the Markets and Cattle Plague Committees:--Mr.

Gibbins (Chairman of the Markets Committee), Mr. Webber, Mr. Gower, Mr.

Brewster, Mr. Rudkin, and Dr. Jarvis (the Medical Officer of Health for

Bethnal-green). Sir George Grey having left London for Falloden.

The Lord Mayor introduced the deputation to Mr. Waddington, and in doing

so, said that their object was to obtain the sanction of Government to

the establishment of hospitals or sanatoriums within the metropolitan

districts, to which diseased cattle could be conveyed from the cowsheds

in order that they might there receive medical treatment, and be, if

possible, restored to health. He observed that similar establishments

had been formed at Edinburgh and other large towns, and that they had

been found to work most satisfactorily, not only in separating the

diseased cattle from those which were non-diseased, but in affording

facilities to the medical profession to exercise their skill and

knowledge under circumstances more favourable to a fair trial of both

than they could expect to find in crowded cowsheds, many of which were

in a filthy condition and badly ventilated. He pointed out the progress

the plague had made, and was still making, in the metropolis, and how

its effects upon the high price of meat and milk were affecting all

classes of the community. The difficulties, he said, of adequately

meeting the necessities of the case were at present very great, and some

of these consisted in the alleged illegality of slaughtering diseased

animals without an order from a magistrate, and also the illegality of

removing those diseased from the cowsheds to the hospitals, supposing

the latter to exist. But he hoped the Government, who had no doubt well

considered a subject of such vast importance, would speedily do away

with those difficulties, and render the fullest aid to the Markets'

Committee and Metropolitan Cattle Plague Committee, who were unceasingly

devoting their time and attention to mitigate, and, if possible, put an

end to the evil. At present, however, the object of the deputation was

limited to that of obtaining the sanction of the Government to the

establishment of the hospitals or sanatoriums. This was an object which

had not only received the general approval of the two committees

mentioned, but also of the medical profession, and he might add, what it

was by no means unimportant to bear in mind, that the cowkeepers

themselves and the salesmen of the Cattle Market were also in favour of

it.

Mr. Gibbins and the several members of the deputation corroborated what

had fallen from the Lord Mayor, and strongly advocated the necessity of

having the hospitals speedily established.

Mr. Rudkin called the attention of Mr. Waddington to the fact that the

day before there were fourteen diseased cows seized at the

slaughter-house of the Cattle Market, which had been sent there from the

cowsheds of the metropolis. He argued that this in itself was a proof

that the Order in Council, as at present carried out, was insufficient

to prevent diseased cows from being sent from the cowsheds by their

owners to be slaughtered for human food.

Mr. Waddington, who listened very attentively to the whole of the

statements, said he would take an early opportunity of communicating

with Sir George Grey upon the subject. In the first instance, however,

he wished the deputation to forward to him their views in writing, and

these also would be transmitted to the Home Secretary.

The deputation promised to comply with the suggestion, and thanked Mr.

Waddington for the courtesy with which he had received and the patience

with which he had listened to them.

YORKSHIRE.--The plague has extended to this district. The cases

reported, however, are extremely few, and precautions are being taken

which it is hoped may stop the further progress of the disease. On

Tuesday a meeting of the Yorkshire Medical Veterinary Society was held

at Leeds, and the question was discussed in all its bearings. It was

stated that four cases had occurred in Leeds, and the disease has also

appeared in the Skyrack division of the Riding. The general result of

the discussion was, that members of the society were recommended, when

diseased cattle were submitted, not to order them to be killed, but to

place them in a sanatorium for medicinal treatment; the wholesale

destruction of the animals being regarded as a blot upon the profession.

NOTE V.

Indeed, information has reached us of the disease existing in

Dumfriesshire, but there is some doubt on this point. So long as we hear

of infected, or probably infected, cattle being disseminated in large

numbers from the great markets of the country, we must have the

propagation of the malady. For the welfare of this country, it is deeply

to be regretted that our Government cannot deal with this question as

Continental authorities do. _I regret to say some of our neighbours

laugh at our expense._ They see us helpless owing to the wretched state

of our laws on the subject, and they are not a little amused at the

theories of spontaneous development of the disease which some still

advocate. The French Emperor has sent over Professor Bouley, who is

still in this country, and who telegraphed on his first arrival, about

ten days ago, that the ports of France should be instantly closed to

British cattle. This has been done, and we may depend upon it the French

people will not suffer as we now must.--GAMGEE, _Lettre du 24 Août_.

NOTE Y.

August 16.

MORE SEIZURES OF DISEASED MEAT.--Yesterday Mr. Paget, in the

course of the proceedings at the Thames Police Court, was informed that

there was a large quantity of meat in a van in the police-yard

adjoining, which had been seized that day by Mr. J. Stevens, the

sanitary inspector of Mile-end Old Town, and which was described as

unfit for human food. The inspector stated, that in consequence of

having been informed that there was a quantity of diseased meat at the

shop of Mr. Frost, butcher, Sydney-street, Mile-end Old Town, he went

there that morning, and found four quarters of beef (two fore and two

hind quarters) which were from a diseased beast. He made a seizure of

them, and heard that the animal had been sent by a person of the name of

Stephens, a cowkeeper in business on Bow-common. The meat was in a very

nasty state, and totally unfit for human food. (Mr. Paget went into the

police-yard to examine the meat, which was in a very shocking state.)

Dr. Freeman, Medical Officer of Health of the Hamlet of Mile-end Old

Town, stated that his attention was called to the state of the meat by

the sanitary inspector. He examined it, and gave his opinion that it

should be destroyed, as it was not only in a diseased condition, but he

believed that it had died from some disease. Mr. Paget: Can you state

the nature of the disease which caused its death?--Witness: I cannot.

Most likely it was the prevailing epidemic; and if it were eaten it

would be very injurious. Mr. Paget, after hearing the evidence, ordered

that the meat should be immediately destroyed, when the inspector took

the van with its contents to a knacker's yard to see the order carried

into effect.

NOTE Z.

NEFARIOUS ATTEMPT TO SPREAD THE PLAGUE.--Yesterday Mr. Gifford,

Sanitary Inspector to the parish of Paddington, asked (at Marylebone

Police Court) for the magistrate's advice under the following

circumstances:--Applicant said that, in consequence of information

received, he yesterday went to a cowshed situate on the Maryland Farm,

Harrow-road. He found the door fastened. On looking through one of the

chinks, he saw a cow which apparently was in the worst stage of the now

prevailing disease, and his opinion was verified after he had burst open

the door and examined the animal. He subsequently ascertained that the

diseased cow had been brought some distance by a man who was at feud

with the owner of the Maryland Farm, and surreptitiously placed amongst

the healthy cattle. This was the first case where the disease had shown

itself in the parish of Paddington. Mr. Yardley referred the applicant

to the Order in Council, dated the 24th of July, 1865, under which he

thought inspectors of nuisances had power to act summarily.

THE END.

LONDON:

SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,

COVENT GARDEN.

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| Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the |

| original document have been preserved. |

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| Greek words are transliterated and marked |

| +like so+ |

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| Typographical errors corrected in the text: |

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| Page 62 Ge11e changed to Gellé |

| Page 67 Bruneleschi changed to Brunelleschi |

| Page 142 Röol changed to Röll |

| Page 175 charboneux changed to charbonneux |

| Page 253 eat changed to ate |

| Page 354 lairs changed to fairs |

| Page 377 Boulay changed to Bouley |

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