On the cattle plague Part 15

[Sidenote: 1. Stock may carry infection in two modes.]

E. _Disinfection of Live Stock._--1. Live cattle may carry infection in two ways: first, by being themselves infected with the plague and reproducing the poison; and secondly, by accidentally carrying the poison from other animals in a dormant state upon some part of their surface, their hair, and particularly their feet. These latter animals may therefore infect others without being or becoming themselves subjects of the plague. All persons therefore buying new animals, should disinfect them before allowing them to enter their premises. In a similar manner, if in a stable there has been a case of plague, the healthy or apparently healthy animals should all be disinfected.

[Sidenote: 2. Mode and means of disinfecting live stock.]

[Sidenote: Warming and refreshing drink.]

[Sidenote: Penned in the quarantine shed.]

2. The mode in which live animals may be disinfected, consists in washing them with disinfectant solutions of such strength as will destroy the contagion without injuring the surface of the animal. A solution of two ounces of chloride of lime in a gallon of water, is a proper solution for washing the coat of animals. A mixture of four ounces of Condy's red permanganate of potash fluid, with one gallon of water, is also a proper disinfectant solution. For full-sized cows and bullocks, &c., several gallons of either of these solutions should be used. Great care should be taken to keep the solution away from the eyes, nostrils, mouth, and tender parts. When the entire surface is washed and disinfected, all disinfectant is removed by the application of great quant.i.ties of clean tepid water to all parts. The animal is given a warming and refreshing drink, and is conducted by a clean attendant to the clean quarantine shed. There it should receive fodder both dry and green, and sop, and plenty of pure cold water, and be rubbed dry with whisks of straw and hay.

[Sidenote: F. The quarantine shed.]

[Sidenote: 1. Objects.]

[Sidenote: Both quarantine and surface disinfection are required.]

F. _The Quarantine Shed._--1. The quarantine shed is intended to keep the new and suspected cattle separate for a period of at least ten days, in order to afford the security, to be obtained by observation alone, that it is not actually infected with plague. While, therefore, disinfection of the surface of cattle removes one kind of danger, another, which cannot be removed, can only be kept circ.u.mscribed or penned in, and this is done by the quarantine shed. But the keeping of cattle in the quarantine shed would not disinfect its surface with certainty even during a much longer period than ten days; disinfection of the surface therefore cannot supply the precaution of the quarantine shed, and a rigorous quarantine cannot supply the effect of surface disinfection. Both precautions are necessary for perfect security, although either of them, without the other, obviates a particular kind and a certain amount of danger.

[Sidenote: 2. Management of the quarantine shed.]

2. The quarantine shed should be situated in an isolated part of the premises. All manure and urine from it should flow and be carried to a particular place separate and distinct from the common dung-heap, and be buried daily.

[Sidenote: Cleanliness.]

[Sidenote: Persons attending healthy stock not to attend quarantine shed, and vice versa.]

The utmost cleanliness should be observed in the shed. All tools, pails, currycombs, etc., used in this shed should be used in it exclusively and nowhere else. The person attending the quarantine shed should not be allowed to go into the shed where healthy stock is kept, or permitted to approach healthy stock. No person attending healthy stock should be permitted to approach quarantine cattle, or to go near or into the quarantine shed. But should unfortunately only one person be available for both duties, that person should be allowed to approach quarantine cattle only when clothed in the safety dress to be immediately described.

[Sidenote: G. The safety dress.]

[Sidenote: 1. Description.]

G. _The Safety Dress._--1. This consists of strong water-boots reaching up to the knees, well greased all over; of a waterproof coat, b.u.t.toned close all the way up in front, and closing tightly round the neck and wrists. The head is to be covered with a cap which takes the hair well in.

[Sidenote: 2. Persons who should use the safety dress.]

[Sidenote: To disinfect before leaving suspected or infected premises.]

2. Every person having occasion to visit sheds in which there is diseased cattle, or suspected cattle, or quarantine cattle, should be provided with the above dress, put it on when entering the place, take it off when leaving the place, and have it disinfected immediately. This precaution should be strictly observed by all inspectors, all veterinarians, or others called in to attend sick cattle, by all dealers and butchers entering sheds, yards, or meadows, for the purpose of sale or purchase, and by all other persons coming on the premises on business in connexion with cattle.

[Sidenote: 3. Strangers not to enter sheds except in disinfected safety dresses.]

[Sidenote: Proprietors of cattle to keep safety dresses.]

3. The owners of stock should not allow any strangers to enter their sheds, yards, or meadows, except in disinfected safety-dresses; and in case this should give rise to difficulties, they will do well to have themselves one or two such safety-dresses at hand, and to cause all persons whose business compels them to enter their sheds, to leave their own boots behind, and to put on the long boots, waterproof-coat, and special cap. Only thus can they hope to exclude all ordinary and obvious chances of infection from their previously healthy sheds, yards, and meadows.

[Sidenote: H. Measures to be taken where plague has appeared.]

[Sidenote: Killing and burying diseased animals.]

[Sidenote: Disinfecting the living and the stables.]

H. _Measures to be taken on Premises where Plague has actually appeared._--1. When the plague has actually appeared in any shed, yard, or place, the sick animal should at once be removed with all due precautions. It is certainly the safest and best to pole-axe the animal at once, and to bury it entire, and then to disinfect the particular lair as above described, clear out the stable or shed, disinfect the whole of it and all apparatus, also all the animals, and only to let the animals enter the shed, &c. again, after it is completely sweet and dry.

[Sidenote: 2. Hospital shed.]

[Sidenote: Situation of.]

2. If, however, a proprietor is desirous of keeping a sick animal because its illness does not appear severe or fatal, he should place it in a separate shed, which must not be the same as or near to the quarantine shed, and be distant from all healthy animals, and so situated that the prevailing wind does not blow from this hospital shed towards the healthy or quarantine shed. The water should also not flow from this hospital shed towards the others, or the yard, or any meadow, but should be carefully drained away and sent off the premises by a special sink.

[Sidenote: 3. Preventing of diffusion of faeces.]

3. To prevent the scattering of faeces by infected animals (and also by suspected animals and all animals suffering from diarrhoea), their tails should be so tied to one or other of their horns as to protect them against being soiled by the intestinal discharges, and to prevent them from distributing such discharges by the ceaseless motions peculiar to these organs. The spattering of faeces should be prevented by a copious supply of rough straw, with some sand, sawdust, or ashes placed behind and underneath the animal. The straw and faeces should be dealt with as has been described. Animals affected with plague or diarrhoea should not be led along streets, highroads, and paths, as they would be certain to drop infectious faeces, which would then be distributed over the entire length of these roads by the feet of men and animals, and the wheels of vehicles.

[Sidenote: 4. Special management of hospital shed.]

[Sidenote: Persons to be employed.]

4. The sick animals should be disinfected repeatedly; their pens should be cleaned and disinfected repeatedly, during the course of the illness. This should be done by persons either guarded by the safety dress, or--and this is safest--by such as may not come into contact with healthy cattle, or have to enter healthy sheds. All tools, pails, fodder, &c., to be used in the hospital shed to be kept for that purpose only, and never to be used with healthy, or quarantine, or only suspected cattle.

[Sidenote: 5. Disinfection of parts of dead or killed animals.]

5. If the proprietor of any dead piece of cattle, whether it has died naturally or been killed, should decide upon dismembering it instead of burying it entire, and upon utilising the hide, horns, hoofs, tallow, and bones, he should disinfect the skin, horns, and hoofs, by steeping them for one hour in a strong solution of chloride of lime, containing one pound of the powder in each gallon of water, and afterwards washing them. The tallow should be thickly powdered with chloride of lime all over, and be sent directly to the boilers. It should not be boiled in any vessel employed on the farm. Under all circ.u.mstances, it is advisable to let this dismemberment of dead and fallen cattle he performed at the knacker's yard.

[Sidenote: 6. Flesh, &c., to be buried.]

6. Flesh, blood, guts, lungs, and the bones of the head of infected animals should not be trafficked with, as they cannot easily be disinfected. They should always be buried.

[Sidenote: I. Disinfection of meadows, fields, roads, &c.]

[Sidenote: 1. Meadows.]

I. _Disinfection of Meadows, Fields, Roads, &c._--1. Meadows infected by diseased cattle should be carefully cleaned of all dung, by burying each dropping on the spot where it lies, cutting out the round piece of turf with the dropping on it, and turning it upside down. The gra.s.s on the entire meadow should then be cut and burned. It should then be left without any cattle for at least a month, including at least two wet days.

[Sidenote: 2. Of roads, &c.]

2. All roads, paths, streets of towns, or villages should be carefully and frequently scavenged. All carts, vans, or waggons used for carrying manure, should be water-tight, caulked and painted, and should not be permitted to ooze and drop their fluid or semi-fluid contents on the road over which they are drawn. They should be kept clean and disinfected, as a precautionary measure, by the proceedings above described.

[Sidenote: III. General recommendations.]

III. GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS.

In conclusion it must be pointed out to farmers, dairymen, and all persons having charge of cattle,

_That the same great measures which are known to maintain and restore the health of human beings, will also maintain and restore the health of cattle._