CHAPTER II.. _the Origin and Causes of the Ox Typhus._

The Origin and Causes of the Ox Typhus.

I have drawn my conclusions as to the preventive treatment of typhus in the ox, from the knowledge I had acquired of its morbid phenomena, its nature, and its non-recurrence; and it is a logical deduction quite as accurate as could be the result of a syllogism. The study of the origin of this typhus, and of the causes by which it is generated and spread abroad, will supply us with additional arguments to sustain this deduction, as well as those signs and indications which are the very foundation of curative treatment. The description of the disease will contribute to the same result; for the rational treatment of a distemper can be derived only from a knowledge of all the phenomena which occasion it, of the functional derangements, and of the alterations observed in bodies after death.

I wish particularly to say at once, in entering upon the subject of etiology, that the special works which treat of it contain precise information as to the causes and origin of the typhus in horned cattle; and that the chief organs of the press in every country--those ephemeral encyclopædias in which unfortunately so much vital force and intelligence are dissipated--have published articles of the highest interest on this subject. It would be physically impossible for me to begin again a bibliographical labour similar to the one exhibited in the First Part, in order to afford due justice to each of these public writers, who have met the epizootia on the confines of their country and fought hand to hand with it. This work is not susceptible of so much enlargement. Let it be well understood, that I claim no other merit than that of discussing these questions of etiology, in that order and with that common sense which fix ideas firmly in the mind--which, if I may use the term, photograph them on those parts of the brain allotted to the memory and judgment; also of drawing from known and admitted facts more rational and practical conclusions than those which have been current up to the present time.

Much has been already said and argued on the origin of the contagious typhus which affects the ox; some adhering exclusively to the special conditions observable in the breed of those oxen which are reared and fed on the steppes of Russia and Hungary; others, more reasonably, as it seems to us, ascribing it to the hygienic conditions generally, that is to say, to the climate, the season, the feeding, &c., &c., amidst which these animals are living.

All these discussions upon what has been said and argued on this subject have been very useful. For, had it been rigidly proved that the oxen of the steppes, by some peculiar organization, carry within them those germs or physiological elements which at given times become the leaven of the distemper, and, at a subsequent period, the elements of the contagion, then, indeed, a fact of capital importance and prominent authority would have been established, and the attention of all men interested in these inquiries would have been exclusively concentrated on that particular race of animals and on those countries smitten with the curse, in order to arrest and confine the disease within its one and only focus.

The supporters of this theory, concerning the first circumscribed origin of the typhus, maintain that all the epizootics whose deplorable history we have given in the first part of this work, have had no other generative causes than the propagation of the complaint, born and begotten on the banks of the Wolga and the Danube, and subsequently conveyed to the different parts of the earth by the emigration of the cattle. And in this manner, too, they have accounted for the appearance of the typhus in South America, in Africa, and in Asia.

Since this doctrine on the origin of the typhus has been conceived and maintained by men of a high order of understanding, we must suppose that they had been struck and convinced by important facts and serious reasons; and as it would be unfair to oppose a plain denial to an opinion now so generally adopted, we are bound to say in what manner these authors justify their views, after which we shall endeavour to refute them.

The partisans of the circumscribed origin, who make it depend exclusively on the peculiar organization of the race of the steppes, have based their argument, peremptory and unanswerable as they imagine, on the prime fact, that it has always been possible to trace the diffusion of the typhus in a given country, to some sick animal of the steppes conveyed to that kingdom. In this manner it is, that they explain the generation of the epizootics which have so frequently wasted the continent of Europe. On whatever point of the globe they may appear, this, and only this, is the source of their existence. The isolated position of Great Britain is made to support their arguments. "Behold," they exclaim, "Great Britain, which, thanks to its surrounding seas, has escaped most of the epizootics which have desolated France and Germany during the early part of the nineteenth century." Nay, more, the present visitation of the distemper is also seized upon to sustain their theory, since certain oxen, natives of the steppes, appear to have imported it into London.

We must add, that nothing is wanting in order to prove this assertion; for they relate with perfect regularity, and step by step, the course taken by the contagion; they specify the time occupied on its passage, and even the names of the infected vessels which have thus imported the principle of the typhus.

It must be admitted that all the facts thus stated are indisputable; we acknowledge as true, that the bovine race of the steppes has conveyed into other countries the contagious germs of the disease; we admit that its dissemination may be thus accounted for.

But to admit this fact, and to draw from it the conclusion that the bovine race of the steppes alone is capable, by some particular and distinct organization, of developing the original typhus of the ox, and that this typhus has no other focus on the earth than the banks of the Dnieper and the Don, does not appear to us a sound logical deduction. And as, if this conclusion were positively recognised, we might see but one side of the evil, and deduce very serious consequences therefrom, it is necessary to receive these facts for what they are worth, and no more.

Let us first observe, that those writers who ascribe the contagious typhus to the race of Southern Russia, do not take into consideration the epizootics of this typhus, the account of which has been handed down to us by the ancient authors of Greece and Rome; and that they refer just as little to those which are quite as frequent in the republics of South America as on the banks of the Dnieper. For even if we allow that once, and only once, one of these epizootics may be traced to the arrival of a ship containing oxen brought from the steppes, how, on the other hand, can we believe that all other epizootics have had such a fortuitous cause to generate it; consequently, the typhus, in these cases, must have been locally developed and diffused among American cattle?

Moreover, we seek in vain for the reasons which would authorize us to assign to the bovine race of the steppes a particular organization, rendering it alone fit to engender the typhus. But let us grant for a moment, that the Russian and Hungarian oxen constitute a peculiar race, as their framework and the length of their horns would seem to imply; this much being conceded, it still remains to be shown in what respect their anatomical and physiological structure differs from that of other animals to such an extent as to render them alone liable to originate this fatal typhus.

Oh! if it were true that the bovine race of the steppes alone could engender the typhus! we would hail the fact with joy, and would show without much exertion of reasoning that, in that case, we possessed not only the means of preventing the disease by inoculating sound and healthy cattle, but the far more important means of sweeping it for ever from the earth, by at once exterminating that cursed race, smitten with the original predisposition of this plague; and as, after all, the murderous scourge of the typhus of the steppes has already cost, and may perhaps continue to cost the various nations of the Old World millions upon millions, they would feel that their most urgent interest would be to come to an understanding (nor would the sacrifice be too much for their resources) so as to destroy and extirpate the evil at its original source. There would then be no difficulty in raising up a new breed of cattle in those countries, by transporting to it those of other nations free from the infection.

But who does not understand that this heroic sacrifice would be illusory, and that the foreign races, modified in time in this new medium, would regenerate the typhus; so that the double sacrifice of extermination and indemnity would have been made to no purpose?

We wish we could adopt this hypothesis, so simple and so consolatory, of the circumscribed origin of the typhus, and its exclusive propagation through the race of the steppes; but our mind is altogether opposed to that view, and for the following reasons, amongst others:--

If the bovine race of the steppes alone could produce the typhic virus, by reason of a particular organization which is the prime condition of its existence, this race alone would of necessity be fit to receive its taint by the influence of contagion. But if the other animals of the same species, as unfortunately too surely happens, can receive the principle of the disorder, develop the ailment, and die of its effects, then the reasoning of our opponents is faulty from its source; and it must be admitted that all horned cattle are apt to generate the typhic virus in those countries which afford the conditions of its production, and that this exclusive predisposition as it is called, attributed to the race inhabiting the steppes, is simply a chimera.

But arguments are seldom exhausted even to defend a bad cause, and it is objected that the fact that all oxen may contract the typhus transmitted by the contact of animals from one to another, does not prove that the original predisposition is the same in every race; and they persist in maintaining--1st, that the typhus of the steppes is alone able originally to beget the disease; 2nd, that having thus begotten and produced it, it becomes, after this organic conception, apt to be transmitted to every animal, and fit to be assimilated with them.

To these subtleties and argumentative refinements it would be as easy for me to oppose abstract reasonings equally strong, as it would have been for the Jansenists and Mollinists, had it so chanced that they had been drawn into a debate on the origin and nature of the virus of the plague which carried off Jansenius. But let us confine ourselves to serious facts and conclude--

1st. That we have no proof of any anatomical and physiological difference in the humours or in the blood--that is to say, in the organic, intimate, and biological elements of the individuals which collectively constitute the bovine species.

2nd. That we have a right to believe, that all horned cattle are apt to develop the typhic virus when they are placed within the conditions required for that effect--that is to say, when they are exposed to the special morbific causes which form its condition sine quâ non, and which are met with on the banks of those great rivers which water Southern Russia and Hungary, in Africa, on the banks of the Nile, in South America, on the margins of the lakes, and in what are called hot climates, &c.

II.

But if the origin of the typhus cannot exclusively depend on the peculiar organization of certain individuals of the bovine species, we must inquire after and search for the real causes which produce it.

We have explained already, in the First Part, what alterations organic matter undergoes in general, when accidental causes happen to modify its organic elements; and we have pointed out the fact, that of all living creatures herbivorous animals were those that offered the least vital resistance to the causes of disease and destruction.

This unquestionable fact being taken for granted, let us now consider under what conditions live the multitudinous herds of horned cattle which in Russia and in South America are reared and supported solely for the produce of their flesh, and sometimes, too, for that of their hides.

The great breeders and proprietors fix the number of their heads of cattle according and in proportion to the quantity of the pastures, but like other men, they mortgage the future for their benefit without making due allowance for accidents or extreme changes of weather, as when years of unusual drought succeed those of heavy rain; so that these herds, by the single fact of these extreme fluctuations in the degrees of temperature, are exposed to a multiplicity of causes productive of disease. The same nature which generates life and health generates disease and dissolution, and when the former are neglected the latter will prevail.

In the prosperous and favoured countries of the temperate zone, such as England and France, these extreme variations in the seasons, which are always the cause of a deficiency or alteration in the production of fodder, are equally the cause of the numerous epizootics which attack all the herbivorous species, and particularly those to which oxen fall victims, such as the tumourous typhus (le typhus charbonneux), the so-called aphthous fever, the contagious peripneumonia (which is not liable to return and is prevented by inoculation), parasitical cutaneous disease.

But in less favoured countries, in those which are damp, argillaceous, swampy, inundated by the overflows of their lakes and rivers, or by the reflux of the sea, there is deposited a slimy or brackish water, which a temporary torrid heat afterwards causes to ferment; and then a superabundance of life, a teeming vegetation, springs up in all directions. In the midst of this swarming vitality live and thrive an infinity of worms, maggots, animalculæ, insects, mollusca, fish, reptiles, birds, &c.; and here, too, all these creatures die and decay, when this slime, the prolific source of generations which we might look upon as spontaneous, begins to dry up and disintegrate. Then from these organic vegetable and animal matters, in a state of decomposition, escape those deleterious gases, such as hydrogen, carbonic oxide, nitrogen, carbonic acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, and even phosphoretted hydrogen.

Often to all these causes of infection are added myriads of grasshoppers, which cover the ground, where they die, aggravating the mass of pestiferous vapour which fills the atmosphere. Finally, the water which slakes the thirst of the herds of cattle is corrupted; the plants on which they feed distil poisons; the air, the water, and the plants, carry within them a principle of venom and death. After this, how can we be surprised if this flood of putrid emanations is transformed into a contagious typhic virus, whose subtle and pestilential effluvia are conveyed by the ox to considerable distances?

In fine, let us recapitulate in our minds all the causes of destruction to which these passive creatures are exposed, and we shall acknowledge that there is no necessity to attribute to them a peculiar organization in order to understand the development of the typhus, which, at a given moment, cuts them all off; and that in the deltas of the different countries, as well in Asia, Africa, and America, as in Europe, are to be found those conditions of infectious disease which we have described. In these causes, and only in these causes, or in those which resemble them, will rational men seek for the principle of the contagious typhus in the bovine race.

Moreover, who is there who does not understand that what is true with regard to cholera is likewise applicable to this contagious typhus? The cholera, for causes analogous to these, subject to the particular state of the soil, is generated, not exclusively, it is true, but most frequently, on the banks of the Ganges, in the same manner as the contagious typhus is developed in certain countries where its natural focus is found.

The race of animals which exists on this deadly and destructive soil is an instrument of incubation for typhus, not in consequence of their peculiar structure, but because the conditions under which they live condemn them to this fate.

III.

Now the breeding of cattle, and the feeding and fattening of them for the market, constitute a branch of industry--a great interest. They all have to be removed, conveyed to various distances, and sold; so that this traffic becomes a new cause to be added to all those which foster, develop and propagate the distemper.

In prosperous times, when the seasons, conformably with our wishes, have pursued a course which we call regular (for we are fain to believe that the planets turn on their axes on our account), and when the cattle find the ground covered with rich pastures, and limpid streams--conditions which are eminently favourable in themselves, though in Hungary it is necessary to add gum, salt, mineral water, and arsenic acid, before the health of these animals is satisfactory,--then the cattle breeders make their sordid calculations, and select the heads of cattle intended for sale.

With animals, as with man, health is but relative, not absolute; the healthiest in appearance often bearing within its frame the fatal principle of no distant death. Fatness not being by any means a sure sign of vital strength, many of these cumbersome beasts, though seemingly in good and sound condition, contain in their systems, in various stages of incubation, the tainted leaven of contagious affections, such as peripneumonia, or even the typhus itself.

But, regardless of this liability, their sale and migration are resolved upon at length. Hitherto these harmless creatures have lived in the most perfect stillness and retirement. Their calm, monotonous life has been as regular as the course of time; never by a single pulsation have their hearts exceeded the wonted number per minute; they are all gifted with a nervous sensibility of which the vulgar have no notion. Some favoured few have felt the sympathy of friendship for the herdsman who tended them, and for the companions with which they fed. They have been leaders of their own herd, they have marched at their head; they have given the signal when to seek shelter beneath the trees, or when to repair to the brook. They have loved the fields amidst which they have grown and thriven. Some of them, reared and fed beneath the domestic thatch, were grateful for the care they had received; their master was endeared to them, they would run to meet his coming, answer to their name, and lick his hand with fondness.

And it is the course of this tranquil, this happy existence, that is about to be broken abruptly. It is this creature, the pattern of gentleness and goodness, that we are going to treat like a heap of insensible and inert matter--which we are going to subject to unutterable torture!

And now, indeed, these creatures are all at once handed over to the savage guidance, to the thongs and cudgels, of a hind, whose cruelty keeps pace with his stolid ignorance, and who abets his dogs to quicken their course to the neighbouring market. From this moment, half-fed and athirst, these poor animals are forced to make long journeys afoot; or since the construction of railways, to be heaped together confusedly in a locomotive pen. There, the shaking, the sudden starts, the friction of five hundred wheels on the rails, the horrid snorting of the engines, alarm and terrify them to such a degree as to turn the whole mass of their blood.

In such a state of vital prostration or feverish excitement, entire herds are carried to the public markets or to annual fairs with other animals, and nearly all sent to the shambles. But some amongst them are reserved for another fate. The females, for instance, are set apart to serve as milch cows; and in this manner they carry with them into the cowsheds, wherein they are received, the taint of those contagious distempers, the germs of which lay concealed in their frames, or which they have contracted from the companions of their journey.

Some of these heads of cattle, starting from the steppes of Russia, have to travel five hundred miles in an open cage, less cared for and protected than bales of merchandise, exposed to the rain, to the heat of the sun, to sudden changes of temperature, to cold and cutting draughts, increased by the rapid motion of the train;--these animals, foundered, prostrate, panting with fever and torturing pains, still have to undergo new trials, if they cross the sea. In this case, the wretched victims are violently expelled from the locomotive, rocking sheds of the railway; a leathern strap hanging from a crane lifts them into the air, and lets them down into the mid-deck of a ship, where they are crowded as closely together as possible, for here, too, space is very costly. Finally, the vessel gets under way and ploughs the ocean; contrary winds beat it about in every direction, and these poor creatures have to endure a new kind of torture, accompanied by the intolerable pangs of sea-sickness; and in this state it is that they alight on the British soil, and are driven off to the different markets.

It is useless to expatiate at length on the state of general derangement and disease in which these oxen reach their final destination. Some amongst them have endured for eight or nine days these unspeakable tortures, without being sustained by nourishment--for no animal, when his spirits forsake him, can assimilate his food amidst all this physical suffering and so great a shock to his nervous system.

Let us here declare that these animals, though removed from their meadows with all the signs and appearances of sound health, at a time when a fine season had been productive of abundance, and when no epizootia was raging in the country which they have left, may nevertheless bear within them the taint of contagious typhus; and let us ask ourselves what must come to pass in those disastrous years when this typhus prevails under the influence of those destructive causes which were passed in review just now, and when the Russian and Hungarian proprietors, eager to forestall an inevitable general calamity, hasten to send off to Italy, France, Holland, Finland, or to the ports of England, many animals already seized with typhus, and whose virus must have acquired infectious properties still more intense and deadly under the influence of the deep disquiet and commotion which the removal and conveyance of these animals, under conditions so deplorable, must have produced in their frames.

Such are indeed the pernicious conditions in which oxen may be, and often are, dispatched to England; and such appears to be the real cause of the outbreak of the spreading epizootia which we witness at this moment, and which has created so much alarm in so many counties of England.

IV.

Let us now consider this contagious typhus in its destructive extension over the British soil; let us study and examine the causes of its diffusion as they pass under our notice.

The mooted question of determining whether the cattle typhus was originally imported from abroad, or whether it broke out spontaneously in England, has been, and still is, a subject of dubious debate amongst some professional men, amongst the leading writers of the public journals, and also amongst agriculturists and farmers.

And, in truth, the propagation of the distemper is occasionally witnessed under conditions so singular and striking, that it seems to warrant and supply arguments for every conceivable opinion.

When the disease was recognised and identified for the first time on the 24th of June, 1865, public opinion ascribed its appearance to contagion arising from some diseased cows imported from Finland, and which, after being exposed in the Islington Market on the 19th, were sold and removed to the cowsheds of a breeder or dairyman.

We may observe that, on hearing the intelligence of this sudden invasion, the public mind, which is so excitable in England, did not disguise the indignation it felt against foreign countries which had been capable of contaminating an island so advantageously situated and so well protected, and infecting her magnificent herds, exuberant with health. But after a closer examination of the facts, and possibly alarmed, at the serious consequences of a Continental blockade which would deprive the United Kingdom, not of the entire twenty or thirty thousand live stock, such as oxen, sheep, pigs, &c., which they receive every week, but only of the eight or ten thousand head of cattle which are landed weekly on their coasts to supply their markets, public opinion was appeased. But, unfortunately, this national susceptibility now took the opposite extreme; and the only causes it now saw were the dirt and want of adequate ventilation in the metropolitan stables and sheds; and to these causes it attributed, first the generation, and then the propagation or diffusion of the malady; an opinion which appeared all the more natural and reasonable, in that the oxen and cows of the graziers were the first victims of the typhus.

We all know how liable, among all nations, the public mind is to waver and fluctuate, and how susceptible and open it is to new impressions during fatal visitations and general calamities; nor can we feel the least surprise at the uncertainty which has so long prevailed, and still continues, as to the real causes of the introduction of the bovine typhus in England.

Let us therefore examine this question of etiology, and try to discover what opinion ought to prevail.

It is important to establish at once two material facts which seem to us indisputable:

1st. That the contagious typhus in cattle which is known to be permanent in the southeast of Europe, actually existed there during the month of June, 1865; 2nd, That some of the horned cattle, fed and reared in that part of Europe, were transported to England, after having crossed through Russia from south to north, in order to avoid passing through Germany.

As for the first of these facts, it is admitted and received, as might easily be proved by reproducing the speeches and addresses delivered by the veterinary doctors at the Congress now being held at Vienna, and at which were present the men whose experience of this cattle distemper gives them the highest authority--Hertwig, Jessen, Röll, Siegmund, Gerlach, &c.

The contagious typhus of horned cattle is so fully in the epizootic state in those countries which are washed by the Black Sea, that it was enough for the veterinarians present at the Congress to manifest a desire to see cattle afflicted with this disease, for the opportunity so to do to be immediately afforded them.

Thus, then, the fact is undeniable, the contagious typhus was raging, in June, 1865, in Hungary and Russia, as it rages there at all times.

As for the conveyance of cattle from those countries into England, the fact is no less certain and assured. It is well known that a convoy of 300 heads of cattle, proceeding from the pasture-grounds of Hungary and Austria, was transported into Finland by rail, and afterwards shipped at Revel for England. Thanks to the rapid locomotion by steam, the migration of these cattle had lasted but ten days--two days for the transport by land, and eight days for the passage by sea, through the tortuous line of the Baltic; but this was sufficient length of time for the incubation to be produced, even supposing the animals to have looked sound when their transit began.

Moreover, it is indubitable that the markets of this immeasurable London have for many years been supplied with horned cattle from every country: from France, Holland, Belgium, Podolia, Poland, Prussia, Austria, Hungary, and Russia.

Thus, the Islington Market (the fact is assured) had received horned cattle imported from the countries where typhus is known to be permanent. Were these cattle thus imported affected with the typhus? This fact likewise is as certain as the other, since two of the foreign cows thus imported, were the first to fall sick, and to die of this typhus.

But if the contagious typhus of horned cattle rages permanently on the banks of the streams which discharge themselves into the Black Sea, and if the beasts reared in those countries have long been transported to England and other countries, how, it will be asked, is it that the disease has not broken out more frequently, for it has never been seen in Great Britain, at least, during the former part of the nineteenth century?

This question is not devoid of a certain degree of importance, and deserves to fix our attention for a moment.

Now the conditions in which the animals were exhibited in 1863 and 1864 were precisely the same as those of 1865, before the outbreak of the disease; and yet the contagion has been possible in 1865, whilst it was not so in 1863.

We do not presume to explain the mysterious phenomena which govern the development of epidemics and epizootics; but it seems to us not altogether impossible to give a rational and satisfactory elucidation of the facts.

In general, in epizootics, and I might even say in some particular epidemics--in that of the typhus, for instance--three connected and inseparable facts form the condition sine quâ non, of the generation of the disease. First, a focus for producing the virus; secondly, for the most part a favourable soil, and a special predisposition amongst animals to receive and propagate it; thirdly, what is called an epidemic or epizootic genius--that is to say, a particular state of the atmospheric elements, or the air, which hitherto has escaped our analyses, and whose morbific properties vary in their degrees of intensity. Thus the epizootic genius of 1711, the terrible one of 1750, and the one which now diffuses its contagious miasma, have differed in some of their virulent conditions.

However that may be, it will be sufficient to glance back at the past to assure ourselves that, in general, epizootics have been coincident with some violent change of season, such as extreme droughts, or superabundant rains; that is to say, when the cattle, disturbed in the physiological conditions of their health, have become favourable to the incubation of the miasmatic leaven scattered through the air, or else when these animals were living under irregular conditions, and had to endure unwonted fatigues and privations, as in the folds of campaigning armies, for instance.

These epizootics have appeared to depend not only on the state of the soil and of the health of the cattle, but also (we repeat it designedly) on an element no less indispensable to the propagation of the disease--a special state of the air, which favours the development and preservation of typhic miasma: for sometimes a sudden change of temperature has proved sufficient to stop the rampant progress of the contagion, the other conditions remaining unaltered.

These relations of cause and effect between the contagious principle, the predisposition of the animals, and the state of the atmosphere, evidently are subject to some exceptions; but we must allow that in the present epizootic they are absolutely and completely applicable. For, in truth, the years 1864 and 1865 have been distinguished, if not by the persistency of a high rate of temperature not often witnessed, at least by an excessive drought during the months which are both hot and rainy; and this has happened in the various countries of Europe, thereby producing a falling off in the pasture and fodder both as respects their quantity and quality.

As to England, a country usually cold and damp, but renowned for its spacious green fields and meadows, it has suffered more than any other country from these unfavourable conditions, and their destructive influence on the grass and corn; the herds having found a great reduction of food where formerly they met with abundance. Everybody has seen, as we have ourselves, large herds of cattle, wandering in amazement from field to field, and seeking for something to browse on a parched and arid soil. A supplementary provision of corn, roots, malt, and the grounds of the beer vat or spirit barrel, no doubt served to mitigate the sad effects of these privations on the health of cattle; but in spite of all that could be done, their blood became impoverished, their strength and vital resistance sank, and (like the animals which we transferred at will into a soil more favourable to the spread of parasitic diseases), they afforded last June, as they do now, an unusual predisposition to suffer and transform the morbific principles of typhus, which in all probability they would have been proof against at any other time. We may very fairly infer this much, for we must of necessity believe that the regular importation of cattle from those countries which are considered as the permanent focus of typhus, has from time to time transported the miasmatic germs of this malady into England, although the virus did not take effect on British cattle at those periods, for want of one or other of the conditions necessary to its generation and development.

We may likewise infer, and a watchful appreciation of the facts contained in the veterinary medical journals would show that this opinion is not unfounded, that the special disease which constitutes this typhus (similar in that respect to epidemic diseases), may develop itself in one beast by accident, spontaneously, sporadically--that is to say, without immediate contagion; in a word, apart from those epizootic conditions which alone render its propagation possible. To be brief, we think that an isolated case of cattle typhus may by chance be detected, when there is no epizootia prevailing to account for it, just as we occasionally meet with cases of typhus or cholera among men during seasons absolutely free from these epidemics. It would not, therefore, appear to us altogether impossible, that under the influence of very special conditions, the contagious typhus of the ox might have its birth in England; and this would favour the theory of those reasoners who maintain that this typhus met with the first causes, and the origin of its development, in the stalls and cowsheds of London. But such has not been the cause of cattle typhus in the epizootia which we see at present.

No doubt some animals suffered great privations, but, whatever alteration their health may have sustained, all this is nothing to be compared to the sufferings endured by the cattle in the steppes under the influence of deleterious conditions of the most exceptional character, which do, indeed, give birth to this typhus, and which we have already described.

No, certainly not! Nothing authorizes us to believe that the typhus now under our observation was bred and born, at first, within the stalls and cowsheds of London. It was most assuredly imported. But it is true, nevertheless, that this cruel scourge found the horned cattle of England predisposed to receive it, and it likewise met with atmospheric conditions favourable to its subsequent diffusion; in a word, it met with the epizootic genius proper for the generation and propagation of the typhus miasma.

It is thus that we may account for and reconcile the two contending theories, one of which refers the cause of this typhus to foreign importation, whilst the other insists that it originated in the filthy and half-ventilated cowsheds of the metropolis.

But if this typhus could not spring up spontaneously out of the bovine race of England, it must be confessed that, independently of the general predisposition due to a great and protracted drought, it found in the sickening sheds of the metropolitan and country cattle the most favourable conditions for its incubation and subsequent diffusion.

It would, indeed, be difficult to conceive of anything more directly adverse to the hygienic laws of health in cattle than the stalls and sheds dotted over the densely populated districts of London. Most of these pent-up cribs are situated in narrow lanes and yards, in filthy streets and blind alleys; and within these close, hot, and steaming receptacles the miserable cows, pressed against each other, without ever moving a limb, waste away and become phthisical in a very short space of time. We may readily imagine what a prey to the contagion must be afforded by these animals, already more or less ailing, some of which are fed in a great measure on malt, so sour and acrid that the very smell of it is intolerable. The milk from these cows is, moreover, of so wretched a quality, that in a cowhouse containing 48 of these poor creatures, at Kensington, I found only one, the milk of which exhibited the taste and quality fit for a sick child, for whom I ordered a milk diet.

It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that the present epizootia, during this late tropical season especially, should have met with all the conditions most conducive to its development and propagation.

When the cattle distemper first broke out, the graziers, not suspecting its gravity, attempted to treat the animals themselves, but soon afterwards perceiving the fruitlessness of all their remedial measures, they felt that the best thing they could do was to turn their sick beasts to whatever account they could, by driving them to market or to the slaughter-houses, an expedient which they were the more disposed to adopt, inasmuch as the diseased cows had ceased to give milk. And then, the removal of these animals, in various stages of the disorder, became the most rapid means of disseminating the contagion, which, had it been concentrated and pent-up at first within its narrow focus, would otherwise have spread with less fearful havoc.

In the meanwhile the sick cows being commingled with thousands of heads of cattle exposed for sale at the different markets, communicated far and wide the principle of the disease; and as a certain number of these animals remaining unsold were driven back to the farms, into stalls until then removed from every cause of contagion, they introduced among their sound companions the fatal germs of the distemper; and as, again, this effectual means of propagating the evil was repeated several times in the same week, the consequence was that, by the end of July--a little more than a month after the outbreak--the whole of the south of England was in some sort contaminated. Thence the contagion extended to the north of the kingdom, and passed into Scotland; so that, at present, the cattle-typhus has spread its ramifications over a great number of the counties of Great Britain.

In the first instance, the contagion spread from animal to animal by means of an infecting influence in some degree direct, among cattle sheltered beneath the same roof, or collected in swarms within the same markets. But very soon the air itself was impregnated and polluted by the vaporization and diffusion of the typhic miasma; and herds of cattle which had no contact, either direct or indirect, with infected animals, were seen to be tainted with the distemper. Whether this contamination was produced by the passage of attainted cattle along the public roads (having fields on the right and left), or otherwise, nothing but an absolute isolation, an utter impossibility of contact, appeared to offer a perfect immunity against the spread of the evil.

The miasma, condensed by the fogs and transported in all directions by the winds, now began to overleap every natural or artificial barrier, and the favoured herds, ruminating at their ease in the manorial farms of the wealthy patricians, in their well-kept parks and amid every luxury, were suddenly smitten with an evil which in their case seemed an anomaly. In such peaceful homes these innocent creatures were tended by intelligent and benevolent hands, which understood and felt for their frail constitutions; food of the best quality was lavishly supplied to them, and whatever they could wish for lay around them in abundance; richly reared, they had themselves become so many ornaments within these scenes of beauty, and all men thought that here, at least, were plots of rural ground which the genius of epizootia would not invade, and in which the healthy herds were invulnerable to contagion.

It was under these circumstances that the fine farms of Earl Granville, at Golder's Green, skirting the Finchley Road, containing as many as 130 milch cows, were suddenly and fiercely attacked amidst their seeming immunity, and struck down in great numbers.

"When I left England a month ago," said the noble lord, "there were about 130 milch cows in four sheds; in the two largest and best managed I found only one cow yesterday, September 4th."

The park of Holly Lodge, which is partly bounded by the main road along which pass and repass files of cattle going to and coming from the markets, was visited by the same unsparing scourge. Now certainly, the noble and beneficent lady of the manor, who secured to her cattle every attention, and who, confiding in the resources of medical science, attempted every means to save these stricken creatures doomed to an inevitable death; she whose enlightened mind, equally open to the claims of science as to those of misfortune, desired that experiments should be made which might tend to throw any light on this devastating malady; she, at any rate, one would think, might have escaped the common lot without exciting wonder or envy at the privilege which she enjoyed. But this fell and sweeping epizootia, inexorable in its latitudinarian march, entered those shady bounds, and decimated those orderly sheds with the same impartiality as it did that of the poor man, Cutting, whose whole fortune was stored up in the two milch cows whose death he had to deplore.

This epizootia threatens to invade, one by one, all the European States, like the awful scourge of 1750, to which we have already drawn attention. For even now Holland and Belgium have been smitten; and the alarm it has excited has for a time superseded the panic which the stealthy advance of the cholera to the west had kindled. Some imagine that it might have been kept out of Great Britain, or have been checked in its outbreak. But, in spite of all the safest precautions and the soundest measures of preparation, it would most likely have baffled human skill, and neither been held aloof nor stifled in its focus. But how painful it is, to have to write and to think that ignorance, carelessness, revolting cupidity, and the most wanton violation of the laws, have all contributed to extend the evil, with the foulest premeditation and the blindest disregard!

To feel one's self a stranger in a country, and to be able to rejoice at one's connexions with it, and at the same time to be obliged to give publicity to certain truths distasteful to those to whom they are told, is a most painful task. But, as it would be to swerve from that duty and loyalty which the national interests as well as those of science impose upon a writer, not to speak out with impartial justice in a matter of so vital an importance, we beg permission to consider, without reserve, this delicate question:--the causes which have contributed to propagate the complaint.

England, so long spared by that wasting scourge, which had so often extended its ravages over France and other kingdoms during the last sixty years, was taken by surprise; and the regulations and laws necessary to stifle without delay the distemper in its focus--that is to say, in the metropolis--not being in readiness, the outbreak of the disease found her helpless and unarmed.

On the other hand, the organic forms of the English Government and municipal bodies, the reserve of the Cabinet during the vacation, the limited power of the Lord Mayor and his civic counsellors, the subdivision of London into parishes and vestries, as in the good times of the middle ages, the loose scattering of the shambles and meat markets through the many streets of the huge town, the right asserted by each man to be absolutely independent and free, the sanctity of the Englishman's home, &c., &c., all concurred to let loose and propagate the contagion, instead of keeping it within bounds.

Indeed, whilst the competent authorities, with all the energy which could be expected of them on so grave a matter, were meeting and discussing the best measures to be taken, and the interesting debates at the Mansion-house were throwing the first light upon the question, the insidious malady pursued its destructive progress, diffusing new terror and alarm. When at length the Privy Council issued their orders, prescribing the public declaration of sick cattle, and that no affected beast was to be conveyed either by rail or by ship, whilst all the necessary means of purification and disinfection were to be employed, &c., it was unfortunately too late, the dreadful calamity having taken root and multiplied its stem like the upas-tree.

What a field for reflection there is in these cases, which originating with the imperfect state of the laws and institutions, have fostered and encouraged the disease! But this is a subject which it would not behove us to discuss, and we prefer to show by the notes which will be found appended to the end of this work, and which are produced as attesting documents, that cattle proprietors, by their own confession, too often sacrifice the interests of the public to their own private advantage.

Nor have we been able to participate in the thoughts and reflections of so many sensible and judicious persons, on the impotence and dilatoriness of the public authorities, and also, let us say, on the inadequate pecuniary means proposed by a people so lavish of its wealth when useful and great undertakings are designed, without paying a natural tribute of regret, to the memory of a Prince who took so deep an interest in the progress of agriculture, and who, had he still been living, would have known how to direct with a firm and steady hand, the right measures to be taken amidst so many intricacies and embarrassments.

Sometimes allusion has been made to France in the speeches delivered at these meetings, presided over by that active magistrate, the Lord Mayor. In the course of these remarks the speakers have praised and held up to admiration the advantages of her system of centralization, the decrees of her sanitary police, and the promptness with which she executes the measures which the public interests require. That is true. France is certainly in a state to resist the scourge with very effectual means to arrest its progress; but if in this matter, as in some others, she have acquired a superiority, it has only been by an experience dearly purchased, these epizootics having returned more than once to destroy her flocks and herds. Politically, the same might be said of her revolutions, those great moral epidemics.

An orator, a writer, went so far as to say, in one of his numerous letters, the one dated the 24th of August: "I regret to say some of our neighbours laugh at our expense."

No, your neighbours will not laugh at your misfortunes. They sympathize at present both in your joys and sorrows, and if I have taken up my pen on this occasion, it has only been because I could not look with indifference on your too just anxieties, when I flattered myself that I might write some useful pages to mitigate and relieve them.

As most newspaper readers are aware, and as everybody may easily ascertain, the diseased cattle, in spite of reiterated orders to destroy them immediately, were, nevertheless, driven to the markets to be sold for what could be got for them; or when their tainted condition was too glaring they were at once sent off to the private shambles, the owners of which, in order to disguise the accusatory proof of the misdemeanor, hastened to sell the body of the animal. It would be quite impossible to mention all the violations of the law, which every day continue to fill the columns of the public journals. One graceless wretch, who deserved to be hanged for it, if his ignorance do not excuse him, was so infamous as to introduce a sick cow into a shed not yet attainted, in his criminal desire of propagating the disease there.

Thus, then, independently of the causes inherent to the typhus itself, which served of necessity to diffuse it, other causes proceeding from the defective state of the law, and the perfidy of individuals, have contributed to its dissemination. And yet the Government circulars, the newspapers, and the reports of veterinary doctors have made known that the slightest omissions and inattentions were serious--that the want of ventilation and cleanliness in the stables, the overcrowding of the cattle, and their abiding near their own droppings, or dung-heaps--that the keeping of dead bodies close to farms, cowsheds, enclosed grounds, and fields--that the hasty and imperfect burial of cattle--that the collection and transit of their fragments, bones, horns, and skins--that the driving on the public roads of any animal either tainted itself, or having lived among those that were sick--that the clothes of persons and stable utensils, soiled with putrid liquids--that all these, and similar causes, were capable of propagating or aggravating the disease.

But whilst we must loudly condemn the voluntary misdeeds of those who drove their sick cattle to market, it must likewise be allowed that, to conform one's self rigidly to the given injunctions, was sometimes attended with serious embarrassments. How great, indeed, must have been the perplexity of any grazier who, being the owner, for instance, of forty head of cattle, and having seen ten of them perish under his eyes, without knowing where to dispose of them, was threatened with the loss of the remaining thirty within a few days! How could he calmly and patiently resign himself to suffer so large a quantity of animal matter to accumulate and putrefy around him, when, suddenly ruined, and destitute of every resource, the authorities held back instead of coming to his assistance.

The prime cause of all the transgressions committed in despite of the Privy Council's orders, may therefore be referred in part to the want of compensation to be granted to the owners of infected cattle. It all might be almost reduced to a question of money. For let us suppose for a moment, that inspectors entrusted with adequate powers, had been authorized, after a close examination, to point out the tainted cattle; to fix a moderate price on them by way of compensation; to have them slaughtered, carried away, and immediately buried, would not such a course have diminished the generation of contagious miasma in a considerable proportion?

Moreover, some cattle-breeders and farmers exposed themselves to the imposition of fines and penalties without any evil designs; for when they drove their beasts to market they were only in the stage of incubation, at the preliminary period, when it is really no easy task to distinguish the distemper. The following fact will exemplify this.

At each market, in spite of continual warnings, the inspectors pick out and despatch to the slaughter-houses a certain number of sick cattle, not only those affected with typhus, but with other disorders. One cannot help wondering, on seeing the poor, lean, sickly condition of some of these creatures, how their owners could have been so mad as to expose them for sale; but in their number there are a few which, although sick, appear in good health to the common observer.

About a fortnight ago, during one of our visits to the great Metropolitan Market, Mr. Tegg, the veterinary inspector, whose intelligence and earnestness are quite equal to the very difficult charge with which he is entrusted, ordered to be seized and removed to a secluded fold near the slaughter-houses, a dozen diseased animals. When once these cattle had been thus collected in a body, it was easy to submit them to a still closer examination. Most of these beasts, adult cows and oxen, were lean, panting, feverish, dispirited, and remained motionless where they stood. But among them was a cow, with a brisk and lively look, a quick open eye, which watched us with anxiety, and fled at our approach every time we passed by her. The turn came for this cow to be examined. Mr. Tegg, strong and handy--as every good veterinary doctor should be--seized hold of one of her horns, but he was quickly shaken off; other persons came up to assist him; the fiery animal was suddenly seized by both horns, by the nostrils, and the tail; but so strong and spirited was the animal, that she defended herself with advantage against all her adversaries, and once more shook herself free.

It was necessary, however, to master the creature, so they surrounded her again, pressing her back this time into a corner of the pen, to overpower her. But lo! the animal takes a sudden spring, and leaps over the bars. Assuredly this cow, for a beast suspected of the typhus taint, had given a proof, if not of health, at least of extraordinary vigour; and her owner, who had seen her condemned with much vexation, now thought he saw ample reason to reclaim her, and drive her back to the market for sale. However the cow, on taking such a leap, and under conditions so unfavourable, came down with all her weight upon her limbs, fracturing one of her forelegs.

After this accident, we were able to prosecute the examination we desired, and Mr. Tegg showed us a row of little glandular swellings on the ridge of the gums, and livid spots on the vaginal mucous membrane, which confirmed his diagnosis. The owner of this cow, nevertheless, still discredited the diseased state of the beast; so to convince him, she was driven off at once to the slaughter-house to be struck down; but, unfortunately, three or four others filled the required area, so that the poor cow was forced to witness the execution of her fellow-creatures before being killed herself. The look and posture of this cow, her excited yet terrified glance as she surveyed this scene of carnage, was one of those pictures which no pencil could draw; and although we acknowledge that man possesses an incontestable right to apply to his own use the dead or live matter of animals for his food and sustenance, we could not help feeling for the poor victim, slipping over the blood, and thus scenting death before receiving the stroke.

We are not excessively sensitive; we have seen a hundred horses bleeding from the incisions made by veterinary pupils, and scores of oxen slaughtered; we ourselves have practised numerous experiments on animals; but the affecting sight of that animal witnessing the slaughter of others, and waiting her turn to die, touched us deeply. We could not help asking ourselves, how it was that man could dispense with compassion and good feeling even in that bloody toil, and why he did not bandage the eyes of the doomed creatures he was going to sacrifice? These dumb animals that we treat like inert matter are sensitive like ourselves; they are very conscious of pain; and if it be our privilege to compute the number of our days, we ought not to forget that they are, like us, endowed with intelligence, so that when they are thus detained at the place of execution, all their senses and faculties being concentrated on their destroyer, they are fully conscious of the cruel fate which awaits them.

At last it was the poor beast's turn to be slaughtered, and ten minutes afterwards we opened her entrails, and had proof that Mr. Tegg's judgment was exact, for already the stomach and intestines offered to view indubitable signs of the typhus at its first period.

The owner of the cow was then convinced and brought to reason, but he still very fairly asserted the goodness of his motives, about which none present doubted at all, and applied for compensation to the full value of the beast, both as butcher's meat and offal, which application was granted.

Judge, therefore, by this particular example, how many tainted cattle there must have been which have propagated this distemper, some with and some without the knowledge of their owners; and, "horresco referens!" how much of this tainted meat must have been purchased and eaten by the public, since this cow had all the appearance of health and vigour, and the real diseased condition might not have been detected at all, but for the experience and sagacity of Mr. Tegg, the inspector.

VI.

In this consideration of the causes of the contagious typhus in bovine cattle, we have deemed it essential to invite attention both to those which are generally recognised and admitted, and to those which, though they may have been settled in the minds of observant and experienced men, may yet appear hypothetical to certain readers.

Besides which, in every scientific work, allowance must be made for the past and future; and here we have two vital distinctions. If the man who undertakes this task does not go on, he falls back; and it was to avoid incurring this reproach that we have passed our old boundaries and visited new avenues. We are aware that more than one objection might be urged against the opinions and theories which we have exposed, in order to account for the outbreak of typhus in England; we might anticipate, we might reply to these objections; but we would rather recapitulate our inquiry into the causes, in the tangible form of practical propositions.

From the general considerations above given, we think we may conclude,

1st. That the causes which generate the cattle typhus on our globe are permanent and unceasing, not only on the banks of the great rivers which empty themselves into the Black Sea, but also in other countries--in America, in Africa, &c.; wherever, in a word, exist the conditions, not of race (the race of the animal in this case being but secondary), but of climate and of the organic elements which are indispensable to the formation and development of typhic miasma.

2nd. That the cattle typhus, although it exists not necessarily, but through the improvidence or want of caution in man, on different parts of the earth, never appears at all in the temperate and more genial zones, save under particular and special circumstances, analogous in some degree with those which generate the human typhus--inclemency of the seasons, overcrowded dwellings, bad or insufficient food, and want of cleanliness; and that these particular and special circumstances give birth to the epizootic genus, rendering the cattle fit and apt to receive the germs of the contagious virus, and to foster its incubation.

3rd. That the cattle typhus, thus accidentally developed in the temperate and genial zones, by means of the vicious hygienic conditions amidst which horned cattle are accustomed to live, and which serve as the causes of its propagation, is afterwards transmitted by the contact of animals living in the same stall or shed, or collected in herds on the same ground, or transported in the same vehicles, by land or sea.

4th. That the droppings of animals, their litter, their dead bodies, and their detritus, or broken-up remains--also the stables, vehicles, and implements which have served for their use, and all matters or substances which have touched them or approached them--are generative elements of the distemper.

5th. That the typhic miasma, thus reproduced and multiplied in one place under the influence of all these producing causes, is conveyed by the winds to great distances, smiting those well guarded cattle which appeared to be fully protected from the possibility of infection by their isolation.

6th. That the want of prompt and stringent measures first to concentrate, and then to stifle this typhus in its focus; the love of lucre, the perfidy of some, and the absence of foresight and caution in others, may be, and have been in the particular cases which we are dealing with, material causes and agencies of its diffusion.

Such we consider to be the causes which engender and propagate cattle typhus, and which will serve as a basis for the preventive measures to be employed in order to withstand and check its propagation.

FOOTNOTES:

We are aware that the transport of cattle is conducted in a different manner during the prevalence of this epizootia. The account given by two German veterinary surgeons of the management of the vessels of the North German Lloyd's, and of the manner in which the animals are treated, is a proof of this; but before the appearance of the epizootia, the transport of animals by land and by sea left much to be desired. This account will be found at the end of this work (NOTE A); and all documents in support of the facts which have served as the basis of our dissertation, are also in the Appendix, arranged alphabetically in the form of notes.

See Notes B, C, D, E.

See Note F.

On the 15th of September, the thermometer stood at 80° Fahrenheit.

See Notes G, J.

See Notes K, L.

See Note M.

See Note N.

See Notes O, P.

See Notes R, S, T.

See Note V.

See Note Y.

See Note Z.