On the cattle plague Part 20

M. Dembinski, Professor of a.n.a.lytical 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, Konigsberg, 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 a.s.sembly, and giving an a.s.surance 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 a.s.sured the a.s.sembly 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. Roll 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Roll; and the committee decided in favour of the shortened quarantine, on the following conditions:--First--When the establishment of quarantine inst.i.tutions 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 a.s.sembly 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 pa.s.s un.o.bserved.

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 a.s.sembly 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 Ess.e.x 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 inst.i.tution, 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, const.i.tuting 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 quant.i.ty 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 ill.u.s.tration 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, Sh.o.r.editch; 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 a.s.sociation, are taking, or resolving to take, sharp and prompt steps to stay the progress of the disease. The committee of the a.s.sociation 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 versa_. 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 quant.i.ty 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 appet.i.te, 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, b.l.o.o.d.y 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.