On the cattle plague Part 9

_Apparatus of Respiration._--Here, again, the typhus shows us injuries which differ from those of typhoid fever; for if the breathing is always more or less obstructed at the outbreak of this fever, no serious organic change in the lungs is the consequence thereof. In the ox typhus, on the contrary, when the pulmonary form prevails, the derangements of the respiratory organs are remarkable. Thus, the mucous membrane of the nostrils, from which flows a purulent and fetid mucus, is sometimes ulcerated and excoriated. The larynx and the trachea or windpipe, choked up with frothy mucus, show the same alterations, though less frequently. The lungs, which are rather congested than inflamed, are emphysematous, the air having entered and distended the cellular tissue which unites the lobes together.

In some cases, the lungs are so gorged with air that their lobes const.i.tute but a single heap, rendering them irrecognisable, so greatly do their volume, their specific gravity, and their spongy aeriform aspect differ from the natural state.

_Apparatus of Circulation._--The inner sides of the heart show ecchymosed spots, and the same is the case with the larger vessels. The blood, diminished in its quant.i.ty and altered in its quality, is blackish and more fluid; but in most cases it coagulates instantaneously and in a ma.s.s, without separating into its solid and liquid parts.

_Nervous System._--Having observed and dissected the dead bodies at the slaughter-houses of the markets, we were not able to examine either the brain or the spinal marrow. Besides, let us remark in this place, that the mode of felling cattle in England would have rendered impossible such an examination. For the animals are struck with a club, which kills them both by cerebral concussion and by the direct alteration of the brain; the instrument having a sharp end which perforates the skull and injures the cerebral lobes. Nor is this all; the moment the animal is struck down, a flexible rod is inserted into the hole made in the skull, and driven as far as the spinal ca.n.a.l, so as to tear to pieces the protuberance and the bulb, that is to say, the vital knot. This manner of killing cattle seems to us, however, preferable to the one adopted in France, where the animal does not sink till he has been struck repeatedly with the club.

But be that as it may, those authors who have examined the nervous centres of horned cattle which had perished victims of the typhus, have usually found the meninges, or membranes that envelope the brain, injected, whilst the brain itself was slightly dotted over with blood.

These anatomical lesions of the nervous centres being insufficient of themselves to explain the death at the second period, we have endeavoured to give the explanation of it in treating of the symptoms.

The other organs, the spleen, the liver, the kidneys, present alterations of a secondary interest only.

III.

_Diagnosis--Prognosis--Use of the Flesh of Animals which have Died of the Typhus--Danger of direct Absorption._

The typhus of the ox has such distinct and strongly marked characteristics that it is not easily mistaken. However, to conform ourselves to received custom, I will say some words about the princ.i.p.al symptoms of some distempers affecting the ox, between which and typhus unprofessional persons might be embarra.s.sed, and hesitate to distinguish them. We will transfer, however, those particulars pertaining to the diagnosis to the part written for the special use of agriculturists, farmers, and graziers, in order that they may readily find whatever it may be necessary for them to know when they chance to have any sick and tainted cattle to treat and cure.

We have likewise a few words to say on the subject of the prognosis of the disease, as regards its propagation and its time of lasting.

Finally, we will unfold a question of very real importance in hygiene--we mean the use and consumption of the flesh of animals as food, and the danger which may accrue to man and other animals from contact with their dead bodies, or fragments of the same.

The diseases of the ox, which we are accustomed to consider as distinguished from typhus, are the contagious peripneumonia, the apthous fever, and the "charbonneux" typhus; but, as we have just said, we will mention by-and-by their chief characteristics.

Everyone is anxious, and natural indeed is that anxiety, to know what this epizootia will become--what will be its course; how long it will last; whether it will extend its ravages over the whole extent of the three kingdoms; and if, in fine, it will invade all Europe.

To answer in a precise manner these questions would be a difficult task; for who amongst us can a.s.sign at present any definite course to the atmospheric variations? and yet they have a genuine influence on the progress of the epizootia. On the other hand, the measures which have been taken hitherto to confine the contagion to its different foci, have unhappily proved almost ineffectual, but it may be hoped that, a.s.sisted by experience, we shall be able to resist the evil more effectually, and check its propagation.

If the atmospheric conditions and the preventive measures could not modify the spread of the distemper, we should have reason to dread a still greater extension of the contagion; for the virulent character of the epizootia appears to be of an exceptional intensity, and we may perhaps compare it with the famous epizootia, of the middle of the eighteenth century, which for ten years afflicted all Europe with its ravages, striking down six millions of horned cattle.

Let the reader cast an eye over the extracts borrowed from the physicians of the princ.i.p.al faculties who have described this typhus, and which we have reproduced in the first part of this book relating to its history, and he will then be convinced that the disease is absolutely the same as that which then raged so fiercely. And if that is the case, we must antic.i.p.ate that it will extend its ravages whilst prolonging its duration. Already it has spread to Holland and Belgium; Hungary and other provinces in the south-east of Germany--a fact much less surprising--are likewise smitten with it; and now we hear the news that France, though so vigilantly on her guard, has seen her frontiers pa.s.sed over. In spite of the _cordon sanitaire_ which she had prudently established everywhere, some horned cattle have been seized with the typhus at the town of Raubaix, in the north.

Without setting ourselves up as pessimists, let us declare that we must expect that the contagion will continue to spread. Let us make up our minds to this, in order to take the necessary sanitary measures, and set ourselves seriously to work by trying the preventive treatment. But, alas! between the Government, the munic.i.p.al corporations, the agricultural societies, the cattle proprietors, and, with regret we add, the veterinary surgeons, there has been sadly wanting, up to the present time, that mutual understanding; that prompt and decisive action, and those pecuniary advances which are so necessary to encounter and contend with this great calamity.

As for estimating with any approach to accuracy the sacrifice of property; the pecuniary loss, which this fatal epizootic may occasion the country, the want of exact statistics as to the number of cattle which have already been struck down will not permit us to do it. But we may, perhaps, already set it down approximately from 50,000 to 60,000 head of cattle for England and Scotland, until we have obtained more precise statistical information on this significant point of inquiry.

That would represent, however, a very considerable capital; for if we compute the loss of each animal at the average sum of 15_l._ only, the sacrifice already incurred would not be less than from 750,000_l._ to 900,000_l._ This sacrifice in money might possibly have proved the be all and the end all; and at this point we might, perhaps, have arrested the contagion, had we all been able to act advisedly and harmoniously together, in the name and for the interest of the public, from the first appearance of the disease. But this calculation of, let us say, 900,000_l._, is made on the supposition that each cattle owner had been willing to abide by his own loss; whereas, unfortunately, many of them have striven to shift it on others, and large numbers of the sick and tainted beasts having been sold and consumed, a proportionate sum thus recovered by those avaricious men must be of course _deducted_ from this estimate. Deducted, indeed! Considering the consequences on the public health, is it not rather an aggravation than a mitigation of the loss?

These last a.s.sertions naturally lead us to inquire whether we are not justified in saying that the flesh of sick and tainted cattle, thus circulated and consumed, has not had its baleful effects on the public health.

The butchers who sold the flesh of these sick and tainted cattle have no doubt been careful to abstain from using it in their own families; and the first time they speculated on the health of their fellow-citizens, well knowing what they did, their conscience probably reproached them with the misdemeanour. But afterwards, when no bad consequences to their customers had been seen, their own impunity, joined to this apparent harmlessness to their neighbours, rendered them bolder, and it became a daily habit with them to sell this peccant offal, which poisons even the earth by its contact.

Moreover, the graziers themselves were in league with the butchers, and took care to slaughter the affected animals before the wasting of their flesh by the progress of the distemper had bereft them of their greatest value. Their private interest prompting them thus to dispose of the sick animals as fast as they could, the majority of the tainted beasts were sold and eaten in the second stage or period of the typhus.

Now, if the flesh of these diseased animals had been eaten raw, accidents most terrible and appalling would certainly have been the consequence, although dogs may have fed upon it without injury. But the cooking of animal flesh at 100 degrees of heat has the property of destroying for a time the septic germs, as the famous debates now being held by the experimentalists who are studying the subject of spontaneous generation tend to show. This poisonous meat, therefore, may at first have been digested without producing immediate ill effects.

Our medical practice, however, authorizes us to declare that, after making every allowance for the influences of this extraordinarily hot summer, digestive and nervous complaints of the acutest description, and without any special cause to account for them, have been very numerous indeed during the last two months, and beyond all proportion greater than they usually are in London. And we cannot but feel that, if the cholera should reach the sh.o.r.es of England at this critical conjuncture, it will find organisms most ready to receive its virus. Then, indeed, if the typhic miasma come to mix and blend with the choleraic miasma, all living beings will have to contend with the most deleterious causes of alterations in their health, and we may (G.o.d send it be otherwise!) witness one of those measureless calamities which, known in former ages as the _Black Pestilence_, decimated cattle and men indiscriminately, and which, when we read the sorrowful accounts of it in history, make the flesh creep with affright.

We sincerely hope that such misfortunes may be spared us. But ought we to abstain entirely and absolutely from consuming the flesh of cattle smitten with typhus? It is a delicate question, but still we shall answer it, making due allowance for every interest concerned.

We conceive that all animals which are smitten with the early effects of the disorder, which begin to operate at the opening of its second period, that is to say, when the first symptoms are declared, such as stupor, loss of appet.i.te and shiverings, may be handed over to the butchers. But this must only be done on the _positive understanding and condition_ that every animal, sick or not sick, in times of epizootia, shall pa.s.s, either in the farm, the market, or the stable, under the examination of a competent veterinary inspector, who shall mark the beast when fit to be sold for consumption. With this precaution, which at present is put in practice in Belgium, every interest is cared for and guarded--those of the public health as well as those of the cattle owners.

But there is another question of some importance which deserves to fix our attention for a moment. People sometimes inquire whether the ox-typhus can be communicated to other animals, and even to man, either by contact, by direct absorption, or by inhaling the miasma floating in the atmosphere.

Experiments of great interest might be made on this subject; but we can already a.s.sert, on the evidence of facts publicly known, that the direct absorption of putrid matter and purulent secretions, and likewise the mere contact with tainted flesh, when the epidermis or scarf-skin is cracked or peeled off, or when the least open sore exists, may give access to the disease, and produce death, both in man and other animals.

In these cases, the absorbed virus operates, not as a specific agent, giving birth to typhus, but as a provocative septic agent, endowed with infectious properties, which infuse into the economy a germ of virulent and mortal disease. So long as a sound and intact outer skin stands as a safeguard between us and absorption, we may fearlessly touch and handle the tainted flesh of these animals. But the slightest sore or abrasion is an open door to let in death. A young veterinary surgeon, who had a slight wound in one of his arms, was carried off within forty-eight hours, as was proved at a coroner's inquest, after he had dissected an ox which had died of the typhus.[P]

We see by this fatal example that we must be particularly careful not to touch an ox tainted with typhus when we carry about us any open sore, unless we take the utmost precaution in order to guard against all direct contact or absorption. Man, as we have said and shown, breathes with comparative impunity an atmosphere laden with the infectious miasma of this typhus. But that which to-day is true may not be true to-morrow; let us, therefore, be also on our guard against the too continuous absorption of an atmosphere impregnated with these deleterious principles.

As for herbivorous animals in general, a similar organization must, in their cases, predispose them to receive the contagion. Whenever we visit the markets, we cannot help fearing to see the ox typhus communicated to the sheep and pigs which are stationed around them. It is an unquestionable fact that, in certain epizootias, all animals without distinction have been smitten and struck down, and the herbivorous animals more rapidly than any other. The habit of collecting such vast numbers of cattle in the same market, and on the same day, though convenient for business, appears to us injudicious, especially during the prevalence of this scourge.

This part of our treatise was in the printer's hands when Mr. Simonds wrote a letter to the Privy Council which justifies all our apprehensions. The typhus of the ox has been communicated to a number of sheep, and we must all expect to see this cruel disease a.s.sume much larger proportions than heretofore, since it has now obtained a second focus for its maintenance and dissemination.

"Veterinary Department, 23, New-street, Spring-gardens, Sept. 25th.

"SIR,--I beg to report that, acting on the instructions received from you to investigate without loss of time the statement received at your office relative to an outbreak of the cattle plague in a remote part of the county of Norfolk, supposed to have arisen from cattle having been in contact with some diseased sheep, recently brought to the premises, I have visited the district in question, and inquired into all the circ.u.mstances of the case.

"It appears that as far back as the 17th of August Mr. C.

Temple, farmer and merchant, of Blakeney, received on his farm 120 lambs which he had instructed a dealer to procure for him for feeding purposes.

"The lambs were bought at Thetford-fair on the preceding day, and were immediately sent by rail to Fakenham, from which place they were driven to Blakeney, a distance of about ten miles. On their arrival they appeared to be fatigued to a greater extent than ordinary, which was, however, attributed to the heat of the weather and the exertion the animals had undergone.

"In addition to this, the shepherd observed that several of them seemed unwell, and he remarked to his master that they did not appear to be a 'very healthy lot,' and that he thought it would be better to return them to the dealer.

Within a day or two of this time the symptoms of illness were more marked in all the original cases, and many more of the animals had been attacked. On the 24th two of the worst cases were removed from the field to the farm premises, and were placed in a shed for treatment, in which afterwards a cow was put. On the 25th two of the lambs died, and in consequence of this, and of the large number which were now affected, the whole were brought, on the morning of the 27th, into the same yard where the shed previously alluded to was situated. There is also another shed, separated from this yard only by some old furze f.a.ggots, into which the cows were driven night and morning for being milked. The lambs remained in the yard till the morning of the 28th, when having had some medicine administered to them, they were returned to the fold and never came again near the cows.

"While in the yard three died, two on the 27th, and one on the 28th, and on the following day two others died in the field. From this time the disease went on, so that by Friday last, the 22nd of September, the day of my visit, forty-six had either died or been killed, and twenty-seven were in a very precarious condition.

"On the 7th of September, ten days after the last exposure to the sheep, a cow gave evidence of being affected with the cattle plague, this animal being the one which had been put into the shed occupied by the diseased sheep on the 24th of August. A second cow was attacked on the 11th of September, and a third shortly afterwards, which was followed by others; so that by the 16th all the cows, six in number, a heifer, and a calf, were all dead.

"My examination of the lambs showed that they were unmistakably the subjects of the plague. The symptoms agreed in almost every particular with those observed in cattle affected with the malady, and the _post-mortem_ appearances were also identical.

"With a view to ascertain the true nature of the changes produced in the system prior to death, I had four of the lambs killed, and from these I took some diseased parts and forwarded them to the Royal Veterinary College without note or comment. These parts were examined by my colleague, Mr.

Varnell, who at once recognised the special changes of structure which are caused by the cattle plague.

"The whole facts of the case leave not the least doubt of sheep being liable to the disease termed the cattle plague, and that when affected they can easily communicate the malady to the ox tribe; and moreover, that when so conveyed it proves equally as destructive as when propagated from ox to ox in the ordinary manner.

"The case is also more important from having occurred in a place no less than fourteen miles distant from any other where the cattle plague exists, thus placing beyond a doubt the fact of the malady being introduced among the cattle by the sheep alone.

"I regret to add that this is not a solitary case of sheep being affected by the cattle plague. I learned that some sheep were supposed to be similarly affected belonging to Mr. R. J. H. Harvey, M.P., on his estate at Crown Point, near Norwich. This place I also visited, and found a large flock of upwards of 2000 lambs, among which the malady was prevailing. A large number had been separated from the diseased, and gave no evidence of the malady. Very many, however, had died, and the disease was making rapid progress. I also examined many of the dead, and found the _post-mortem_ appearances to be identical with those seen in the other cases spoken of in this report.

"In this instance the malady was brought into the estate by the purchase of some cattle, which afterwards died from the disease, and which were unfortunately pastured with the sheep at the time the disease manifested itself.

"The whole matter is one of the greatest importance, and which I lose no time in submitting to you for the information of the Lords of the Council.

"I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient servant,

"JAS. B. SIMONDS."