CHAPTER IV.. _treatment and Cure of the Ox-Typhus._

Treatment and Cure of the Ox-Typhus.

In now addressing ourselves to the treatment, and, as far as human agency can effect it, to the cure, of this insidious distemper, we cannot conceal from ourselves, that this is the most difficult, the most delicate, and, at the same time, the most important division of our work; for it is to this part, above all, that attention will be directed. This portion of our task, therefore, will prove especially arduous; and nothing can give a better notion of the difficulties we shall have to encounter than the many fruitless attempts which, for several months past, have been made to overcome them by many ardent inquirers, stimulated by the best possible intentions.

This, then, is the moment--if we may be allowed the metaphor--to take the bull by the horns; and we do so without hesitation. If, like so many others, we are baffled and overcome in this unequal struggle--if our strength is not on a level with our desires--we trust we shall be pardoned.

Several paths leading to the same end may be followed in this exposition of the treatment of ox-typhus. After mature reflection, we shall adopt the one, which will allow us to take the disease at its birth, ab ovo; to study it in all its phases, in its first and second causes, and then in the successive periods of its development.

In this manner, we shall be able to give an account of each fact of real importance mentioned in the foregoing pages, and to comprise within the treatment whatever is connected either directly or indirectly with the disease.

Thus we will relate in so many separate articles,--

1st. The means and measures to be employed to meet and resist the first local causes which may generate the typhus, then the secondary causes which serve to propagate it.

2nd. The means of preventing the spread of the disease to animals still in good health.

3rd. The means of treating it at its different periods, from the period of incubation to that of its decline.

4th. Finally, we shall insert the laws and sanitary regulations which have been published in England relative to this disease.

As will be seen, by adopting this method, the whole matter will be considered consecutively and in regular order; and the reader will understand that when such a phase of the malady is developed it is because the preceding one, which is the cause of it, has not been effectually contended with.

Means and Measures to be employed to resist the Causes of the Contagious Typhus of the Bovine Species.

We have shown fully and explicitly in what countries of the globe, and in what particular conditions, the typhus is generated among oxen. We know that this dire disease has its focus on the banks of great rivers or lakes, which are periodically overflowed, and on which is deposited a slime teeming with organic matter; in marshy plains, where the same natural impurities are fostered; and that these first hotbeds of the evil are found in China, in India, in America, in Africa, as well as on the shores of the Black Sea. A spirit of observation which delights in measuring the phenomena of nature with the contracted compass of its own short views and conceptions, could alone have imagined that the ox-typhus was only to be found originally in the steppes of Hungary and Russia, and that the bovine species of those countries, thanks to a special organization, was alone capable of generating the typhus.

Since we know, then, in what conditions this disease is developed, and especially in what manner it is propagated in Europe, it is not impossible now, when nations are united by the means of quick and easy communication, by commercial treaties, and by the mutual relations of science, to examine what measures might be taken to modify and control these conditions. A commission formed for this purpose, a scientific congress, would be able to make on the spot a study of all the circumstances which favour the development of typhus, and the result of their reports would enlighten the peoples as to the causes which produce it and from which they are first to suffer. They would be recommended to choose as pastures the healthiest places, to withdraw their cattle at certain seasons from those plots of ground which are baleful to them; new systems of agriculture would be planned and tried, &c. These questions being carefully examined, might lead to important results; nor can we understand how, in the age in which we live, the same indifference and apathy as prevailed in the past should be maintained in presence of the positive and permanent causes of this infectious disease, whose contagion, as we now see by many proofs, may extend at once to so large a portion of Europe. There is now something to be done in this matter; it is the duty of the governments to deal with it effectually, and to take serious measures to destroy the evil radically, if radically it can be destroyed, and, if not, to alleviate its pernicious effects as much as possible.

Moreover, many breeders of cattle have not waited until now to guard against some of the first causes of the typhus: already they give the animals rock salt, ferruginous and arsenical preparations, but all this is done without method, and according to each man's will and pleasure. It would, therefore, be necessary to institute regulations, and to see them carried out and practised under the superintendence of public functionaries, armed with sufficient power and authority.

These measures having been taken, others no less indispensable ought to follow. They should determine for the herds of cattle intended for exportation, the ways and channels they must travel by to go to any central part or to any railway station; and there the inspectors on duty should mark every animal that passes out of the district he is leaving. Heavy penalties should be inflicted on all who might infringe these rules.

These precautions would contribute in part to arrest the propagation of the complaint; but there is another measure more radical and effectual, which should be taken in order to prevent its extension--we mean inoculation, which has met with complete success in some of the governments of Russia.

Thus we see, there are powerful means of withstanding the production of the disease in its focus, or generative bed, and likewise its extension among the herds of neighbouring countries; and these latter might render them in some sort obligatory, by refusing most rigidly to admit to their markets, as in Italy has sometimes been done, every head of cattle which was not marked as inoculated or which was not furnished with a permit of health.

It is easy to conceive that those countries wherein the ox-typhus has its birth, and for which the breeding of cattle and their exportation are a great source of wealth, would soon feel that they are more interested than any other in stifling the contagion in its focus, and in affording to those countries that receive their herds, every security and guarantee which they have a right to expect. Interest in this case coming to the help of common sense, very satisfactory results would in course of time be obtained.

Moreover, we are conscious that we are here dealing with very complicated questions; for, though in a book they may seem simple and easy, their application is a matter of extreme difficulty. We know too well that these preventive measures for protecting animals will meet with many obstacles, and only be adopted at last with tardy reluctance, since man himself continues in some respect indifferent to the causes which spread about the fearful epidemics to which he falls a victim in consequence of his neglect.

In truth, it is well known that the cholera of the present day--that much more serious plague--had its origin on the banks of the Red Sea, amidst the infectious miasmata developed near Mecca, where thousands of pilgrims who had died of fatigue and privation, and hundreds of thousands of sheep butchered and religiously offered up in sacrifice, have, beneath a torrid heat, generated the choleraic miasma, which formerly was supposed to be produced exclusively on the banks of the Ganges. This fact duly ascertained and proved, we might suppose that the governments of the different nations among which the cholera is about to extend its ravages, were indignant and had complained at thus being smitten with a scourge, due to the careless ignorance and sordid avidity of some official of the Turkish Government. But we should be mistaken.

No! every one hoped at first that he, at least, would be spared by the contagion, and the authorities did nothing to resist the evil but adopt the old course of quarantine--a remedy more illusory now than ever, since the nations are in constant communication, either in their own persons or by the exchange of their commodities; and consequently, the epidemic is pursuing its invading course from week to week.

That which is being done for the cholera gives us a scale by which we may estimate the efforts which will be made to arrest the generation and the contagion of the cattle typhus.

We are certainly bound to resist the introduction of horned cattle tainted with typhus; but in the conditions amidst which they live, some of them may bear the seeds of the distemper, even whilst they appear in perfect health, and therefore able to endure the fatigue of a long journey.

Now, in order to avoid exciting the incubation of the typhus during their transit either to Finland, Holland, France, or England, it must never be forgotten that these animals are gifted with a nervous sensibility of wonderful acuteness, joined to the weakest vital resistance. Care must be taken to husband their strength, to give them a choice distribution of food easy of assimilation; barley-meal, or other grains, must be mixed up with their drink; they must be protected from the changes of weather; they must have room enough and air enough in the locomotive stalls on the railway trains and on board ship.

We pass over in silence the hygienic measures to be taken in order to keep these vehicles of transit in a proper sanitary state: the sanitary police regulations inserted further on will make them sufficiently known.

All these measures having been taken to meet and withstand distant causes and dangers, let us now direct our attention to those local causes which strike our eyes, and which likewise have their share of influence in propagating the disease. Thus, whenever an inclement season comes to deprive the herbivorous animals of sufficient pasture, or to deteriorate its natural qualities, we are bound to remedy this change, and to increase the cares we devote to them; for these frail and helpless creatures, immediately feel and suffer from the effects of a sustenance less than usually restorative. Under such circumstances, we must make exceptional sacrifices; when they return from feeding on the grass, we should give them some additional fodder, or roots of a generous quality. We must imitate the regimen used in the country of the steppes, by adding to their forage a solution of marine salt, or a solution of sulphate of iron. Day by day we must give to the weakest and least fed cattle, a ration consisting of bruised oats, pounded juniper berries, gentian, sulphate of iron, and carbonate of soda.

For, if we neglect to take those measures which are required to prevent among herbivorous animals the development of those ordinary epizootias, which every year are generated on our own soil, they will certainly afford a favourable seat to the typhic miasma transmitted by foreign animals, or exceptionally generated by themselves. These cares and attentions must be greatly increased, when the foreign epizootia, has spread itself, as in the present instance, among our flocks and herds. Then, indeed, we must be careful not to load these creatures with pampering food for the purpose of fattening them. For it may be profitable, and the breeder may plume himself, on having produced an adipose monstrosity to such a degree as to bury, for instance, a pig's head in the fleshy exuberance of his thorax; but such a derogation from the laws of nature borders closely on disease, and assuredly such an unnatural accumulation, predisposes the glutted animals to epizootic diseases in general.

The water given them to drink must be attended to with particular solicitude. It should never be drawn up from ponds or stagnant rivers. The animals kept in the pasture grounds should always find at their disposal, in receptacles intended for their use, a supply of pure fresh water.

After these precautions with respect to their food and sustenance, attention must next be directed to the hygienic conditions required by the animal. Every morning he should be cleaned, washed, brushed, and dried; what is every day done for the horse must now be done for the ox. These unusual cares will be most salutary to him, and greatly increase his vital resistance.

The animal thus protected in his food and particular necessities, attention must next be directed to the stalls and sheds. Over-crowding must be carefully avoided; the proper cube of air for breathing must be measured out for each head of cattle; every day the latter must be carried out into the open air; the floor of the stall or shed must first be thoroughly cleansed and washed out, after which it must be sprinkled with a solution of chloride of lime. If the stall is not well aired, a little straw should be burned on the ground, to improve the atmosphere, or else branches of resinous trees, or juniper berries may be used. In some cases aromatic fumigations of sage, rosemary, or mint, boiled in water, are employed, the balsamic vapours which arise therefrom being at once tonic and purifying. During the night a tub, containing pitch and tar, should be left in the stall, or a large piece of camphor should be suspended from the ceiling. Vinegar may be spilt on a piece of red-hot iron, or powder of sulphur may be burned into sulphuric gas and diffuse its vapours through the stall or shed. This excellent parasiticide may perhaps be equally endowed with anti-typhic properties.

Finally, when this fatal epizootia is ravaging the country, every farmer and agriculturist must carefully abstain from mixing with his herds any cattle which have been bought either at fairs or markets; he must take care, conformably with the directions issued by the Privy Council, (to which we refer the reader for more ample details,) to avoid all contact both direct and indirect with horned cattle tainted with the typhus, as he might himself become an instrument of the contagion.--Let him never forget that to take as the guide for his actions in these times of calamity his private and personal interest, is the greatest crime a man can commit. Let him strive, therefore, to assist the authorities in the measures which they have taken for the interest of all.

II.

Now that we have examined the measures which prudence directs us to take to defend ourselves against the causes which produce and propagate typhus, let us think of the means of preventing it, when the contagion threatens to diffuse itself over a whole kingdom, as at present it is doing in England.

When, on the 19th of last June, it was believed that the typhus or Cattle Plague, as they continue to call it, had effected its invasion in England, the Government, informed by professional men of the serious danger to which the interests of the country would be exposed, if the disease should spread, might have considered this distemper not as a question of private interest, but as one of public and national concern. It might at the outset have given to this epizootia all the significancy of a public calamity, have looked upon it as the invasion of an enemy threatening to destroy its territory, and have employed every possible means to stifle it at its birth.

We well know that the English Government, derived as it is rather from political than from religious and social changes, is at once monarchical, aristocratic, and partially democratic, and for that reason embarrassed in its working by so many wheels. Its authority is scattered and divided, whilst the respect ascribed to the prerogatives of each distinct public power is the safeguard of the State. In the absence of both Houses during the recess, it could take no resolution as to ways and means; for the difficulties on this unhappy occasion, we cannot too often repeat it, are reduced to a question of money. Deprived of the requisite authority, it was unable to do more than exhume the old laws on the matter and ordain new ones. And yet, the impotence of the Government was not perhaps so great as is imagined; for whilst it suffered the typhus almost unmolested to devastate the country, it very justly, and in the name of the public interest, took vigorous and effectual measures to stamp out another epidemic--the rash and insane conspiracy of the Fenians. It stood still and would not authorize domiciliary visits in stables and stalls, nor the seizure of sick animals, but it did not falter a moment at the domiciliary visits and incarceration of insurgent citizens meditating mischief, so that in this instance, the privilege of immunity has been given to the brute creation. Everybody, both in England and out of England, admires their vigour and despatch in stifling the insurrection in its bud. But why not act with equal promptitude in the case of an epizootia?

Arming itself, in this manner, in the public interest, and with sufficient power, the Government might have appointed an executive commission, with the Lord Mayor as president. Such a commission would have applied itself at once to the consideration and studious examination of the subject in all its bearings, and would have proposed prompt and energetic measures, which the Government, with equal despatch, would have confirmed by giving to them the authority of law, as they have since tardily done. A fund, which, for the wealth of England, would not have been considerable, 250,000l.--the cost of a few Armstrong guns--might have been placed at the disposal of this Board, to enable its directors to meet and provide for, without delay, every just claim and want arising from the scourge.

An auxiliary commission, exclusively medical, and consisting of medical and veterinary doctors, might have been formed conjointly with the former, and every preventive measure, considered by them as necessary to stamp out the complaint at the outbreak, after it had been proposed by the medical board, and submitted to the executive commission, and by them to the Home Secretary, might have been acted upon by law within twenty-four hours.

Taken unawares, and the mode of treating the sick animals not being known at first, they would have been reduced to the cruel necessity of exterminating at once all tainted cattle, as well as those belonging to tainted herds, but not without compensating the owners of those cattle.

They would have sent two physicians to Russia and Hungary, to observe and study the preventive and curative medication, especially their mode of inoculation, and thanks to the rapid locomotion of these times, twenty days would have been sufficient for this foreign exploration. The physicians constituting the medical board should have been authorized to seize any beast tainted with the typhus; a company should have been charged to collect and keep ready for the public service, at the four quarters of London, an ample retinue of horses, closed carriages, and working men, to convey at all hours of the day and night the carcases of the slaughtered animals to the respective spots, where long and deep trenches had been dug to receive them. Each carcase before burial to have been well sprinkled with chloride of lime.

By taking this course, every one's interest would have been respected, as much as can be desired when a great calamity threatens a country; besides, in doing so, the present ministers would but have followed the example of the Government (with regard to compensation), during the epizootia of the eighteenth century. The proprietors who had thus received, not the full and absolute price, but a sum sufficiently remunerative for their sacrificed cattle, would have assisted the authorities, and thereby would have served the common interest, because their sick cattle, perishing every hour within their stalls and sheds, were no longer a real source of embarrassment and ruin. They would not have been obliged to drive them to market to get what they could out of them and disencumber themselves. The most active cause of the contagion would by this means have been prevented.

This allowance having been made for the most pressing dangers, attention should next have been directed to a matter no less important--we mean the treatment and cure of this distemper; for we will never admit that England can have fallen back a century, and that whilst those enlightened men--Malcolm Flemming and Layard--proposed and tried to cure and prevent ox-typhus in 1757, we, in 1865, shall have been reduced to the horrible alternative, the repugnant barbarity, of the general and indiscriminate extermination of the tainted cattle.

Whilst, therefore, the treatment of the typhus would have been studied on the spot, and the most urgent measures would have been taken to withstand the propagation of the evil, they would have established, a few miles from London and on the northern side, in the direction of the great cattle market, a number of hospitals or sanitariums, and, as far as possible, within a park. These hospitals, constructed of wood, containing, besides stables and sheds, a slaughter-house, a dwelling-house for the staff of employés, a laboratory stocked with all the physical and chemical instruments required, &c., would in two or three weeks have been sufficiently prepared to receive a certain number of cattle.

Provided with these advantages and opportunities, a permanent stage of operation would have been raised on which trials and experiments might have been made with every chance of fruitful results. In these sanitariums, for instance, the most practical physicians and veterinarians might have entered upon a systematic course of treatment, dividing the bovine patients into classes, according to their periods of disease, their age, &c.; and trying some particular mode of treatment, some remedy considered as effectual, alternately, upon each of these classes of tainted cattle. These experiments, having been made under circumstances so favourable, would have enabled the faculty to establish a medical basis, which, if not infallible, would have been relatively efficacious, and might have saved a large number of the infected animals.

Whilst thus fixing their attention on the cure of the sick animals, these experimentalists would have carefully studied and practised the preventive treatment by inoculation, availing themselves both of Layard's hints and recommendations and of the practical knowledge acquired by the medical expedition to the steppes, which would by that time have returned from their mission. They would have selected animals smitten with the genuine typhus, of the typhoid and intestinal form, in the third period, whilst the depurative and critical secretions are running from the mucous membranes; they would have gathered the virus from its springs of infection or from its purulent subcutaneous deposits or from the serum of the blood.

On the other hand, they might have chosen four heifers, of good constitutions and healthy, and these they might have prepared, according to Layard's advice, for inoculation, by a special treatment, and by hygienic and medical cares. On some of these the inoculation would have been made near the tail, according to the subcutaneous process, with a lancet charged with typhic virus; on others, a crucial incision, or cross-cut, would have been made on the crupper. But, to speak truth, we cannot do better than Layard, whose ingenious treatment, with all due deference to a certain veterinarian of our day, deserves a very different epithet than that of being amusing. Layard says:--

"That nothing may be omitted which in any shape can contribute to the success of inoculation, due attention should be paid to the constitution and state of the beast, no less in this practice on the cattle than on the human species. Undoubtedly the young, healthy, and strong bid fairer for a good issue than the old, sickly, and feeble; each of these different constitutions demand a particular treatment, even in the method of preparation; and however trifling it may seem to many--the urging a necessity of preparation--I will venture to affirm that I have seen excellent effects arising from a rational preparation, and fatal events from want of preparation. I have likewise been witness of unfavourable turns, merely from an injudicious preparation.

"The beasts which are sanguine require moderate bleeding; those that have but a small share of blood must have none drawn. The strong must, besides moderate bleeding and purging, be kept on light diet and their body kept open. Thus, scalded bran, mixed with their hay and chaff; will cool them. The weakly, and such as are inclined to scour, must be kept on dry fodder, and have peas and beans given them to strengthen them. A mess of malt, or a quart of warm ale, with a few spices, will be very suitable for them.

"Whatever diseases the cattle be affected with, if time will permit, they are first to be removed.

"The cattle to be inoculated are first to be well washed, rubbed dry, and then curried, to remove all the filth from the hair and skin. Then they are to be placed in a spacious barn or stable, where the air is temperate and no cold can come to them. There they are to be prepared according to the direction already given, foddered with good sweet hay, and watered with clear spring water; and if the distemper be not near they may be turned out into the air, near the barn or stable, and may stay there a few hours in the middle of the day.

"When it appears that the cattle are in perfect health, free from any infection or other disease, brisk and lively, neither costive nor scouring, and chewing their cud, then the operation may be safely undertaken, and henceforth they must be confined to the barn.

"Since there is observed to follow the greatest flow of the contagious and putrid particles separated from the blood, wherever the infectious matter makes an impression at first, particular care must be taken not to inoculate near such vital parts as the heart and lungs, nor near the womb, if a cow with calf be inoculated; for, though rowels are properly applied in the dewlaps, to draw off the pestilential humour from the breast, and in other cases beasts are frequently rowelled in the flanks,--yet in this operation, as matter is inserted by these channels into the neighbouring vessels, those vital parts, or the womb, might become the chief seat of the disease, and the event prove fatal.

"To prevent such accidents, human beings have been inoculated on the arms and legs, and now-a-days the arms are found sufficient. I would recommend that the cattle should be inoculated about the middle of the shoulders or buttocks, on both sides, to have the benefit of two drains. The skin is to be cut lengthways two inches, deep enough for the blood to start, but not to bleed much. In this incision is to be put a dossil or pledget of tow, dipped in the matter of a boil full ripe, opened in the back of a young calf recovering from the distemper. It may not be amiss to stitch up the wound, to keep the tow in, and let it remain forty-eight hours. Then the stitches are to be cut, the tow taken out, and the wound dressed with yellow basilicon ointment, or one made with turpentine and yolk of egg, spread on pledgets of tow. These dressings are to be continued during the whole illness, and till after the recovery of the beast, to promote the discharge; and then the wound may be healed with the cerate of lapis calaminaris, or any other.

"On the third day after inoculation, the discolouring of the wound, whose lips appear grey and swollen, will be a sign that the inoculation has succeeded; but the beasts, as Professor Swenke informs us, did not fall ill till the sixth day, which answers exactly to the observations daily made in the inoculating of children. Yet the Professor adds that on the third day a costiveness came on, which was removed by giving each calf three ounces of Epsom salts.

"No sooner do the symptoms of heaviness and stupidity appear than the beasts must have a light covering thrown over them, and at night fastened loosely. They must be rubbed morning and evening, and curried, till the boils begin to rise; warm hay-water and vinegar-whey must be given plentifully. Should the beasts require more nourishment, dry meat, such as hay, with a little bran, may be offered. I should be very cautious in giving milk-pottage, even after the boils and pimples had all come out, for fear of bringing on a scouring. However, this caution is proper, that whenever milk-pottage be given the vinegar-whey is to be omitted for obvious reasons. In cases of accident, the same attention is to be observed in the disease by inoculation as in the natural way, and the medicines recommended are the same I would use; but by inoculation there seldom is a call for any, so favourably does the distemper proceed through its several stages.

"The crisis being over, it will be proper to purge the cattle, to air them by degrees, and to have the same regard in the management of them as is laid down in the chapter on the method of cure."

The typhic virus is so highly infectious and poisonous that the first animals inoculated would have all died; it would have been necessary to inoculate successively a number of animals with the virus derived from the first inoculation, and transmitted from an inoculated animal to a healthy one, by which means they would have acquired a virus of the first, second, third generation, and so on. These inoculations having always been made on four animals at a time; on two of them, the disease would have been left to take its own course, in order that the experimentalists might watch its progress and development, and the two others would have supplied the virus for inoculation.

At the third or fourth generation, the virus, modified and attenuated in its infectious principles, would no longer have been mortal in its effects, as experience has proved in Russia. Then the inoculated animals, placed under the control of hygienic cares and a few purgative and tonic medications, would have passed from convalescence to health. The virus thus attenuated would have supplied the means of a practical inoculation on a large scale to all healthy animals.

Proceeding thus, they would, moreover, but have followed the method adopted in those times of epidemic and epizootia when the small-pox is raging. On those occasions, we subject our sick patients to vaccination or revaccination; we inoculate the variola in our sheep threatened with the contagion; we pursue the same course in cases of epizootia, of peripneumonia. And truly, that which it is reasonable to do in one case may be generalized and applied to a greater number.

The experiment we have suggested might, perhaps, have been long and difficult, nay, even costly, but we should have established, after a certain time, the rational method of this preventive treatment, and have distributed the same throughout the country. Veterinarians would have formed in particular districts their centre of operation, in which the preventive virus might have been produced, and they might have gone from farm-house to farm-house to inoculate all the cattle within them.

From these facts and observations made by the physicians, precious documents would have been derived; and if, contrary to all expectation, success had not justified every hope, we should have bequeathed to future generations facts and experiences which would have been of the most useful character to them and full of instruction. Thus it is that science advances and progress is accomplished.

If all that we have just indicated as a realizable matter had been done, in effect, England would have afforded in this, as she has so often done in other cases, a noble example to be followed, and would have acquired a new title to the admiration of other nations.

But, unfortunately it has not been so: silence has succeeded to eloquence at Guildhall, and the meetings at the Mansion-house have flickered away. That which was held on the 27th of September, seems likely to be the last of them.

The subscriptions which, in spite of all the praiseworthy efforts and earnestness of the Lord Mayor, did not reach 2000l., were returned to the subscribers, so that all the attempts which have been made to centralize the direction to be given to the various measures have proved abortive. The plan of forming sanitariums, as well as that of compensating the owners of cattle, have both fallen to the ground.

What can we think of such a state of things when we see the ox-typhus extending its ravages to sheep, and have to fear that the disease will spread to other animal species? What serious reflections it creates in our minds, and what awful consequences we might deduce therefrom! But what would be the use of them?

Let us add, however, that France, save on the recognised principle of indemnification, and a more speedy extermination of her tainted cattle, has shown the same deficiency as to the means of treatment as England; whilst we have the consolation of attributing this impotence on the part of this country to the fact that the outbreak of the epizootia has occurred during the Parliamentary recess.

It is, therefore, to institutions rather than to individuals that we must ascribe the impossibility of conquering the difficulties which have been met, and which at any other time might not have obstructed the course of things. Far be it from us therefore to accuse of indifference a great people renowned for their zealous promotion of public interests, for their charity and inexhaustible philanthropy, whose innumerable asylums have been opened to every misfortune, who support so many hospitals and public charities by their voluntary contributions, and who, in so many calamities, have seen some devoted heroine issue from her retirement to assuage them. For if the Crimean war produced its lady beneficent in the person of Florence Nightingale, all of us must allow that if others had followed the example of Miss Burdett Coutts, who, in a manner, has stood alone against the storm, by the facilities she has afforded for treating and experimentalizing on the cattle smitten with typhus, the formidable scourge might have been arrested in its focus.

III.

Curative Medication.

We might acquire the means of resisting the general causes which develop the typhus; we might stop its diffusion, we might even prevent it, by inoculating the sound and healthy animals, and yet it would be necessary, none the less, to search for the means of curing it; for, as in the small-pox, the preventive treatment of which we know, certain circumstances would arise in the disease which would oblige us to treat it. And as we are far from being able to resist the generation and dissemination of this scourge, which reckons almost as many victims as sufferers, it is important to make known what treatment we can oppose to the functional derangements to which it gives rise.

As we have already said, this typhus, when the organism has absorbed its peccant and infectious miasma, produces a succession of disorders which become in a manner temporary functions; it pursues its phases, its periods; and as the functional derangements differ at these several epochs from the development of the morbid phenomena, the course of medicine which is employed to check them cannot always be the same. Starting, therefore, from practical data, we will attend the disease in its gradual advance--that is to say, in its distinct periods--and will afterwards explain certain predominant symptoms, which, owing to their importance, must likewise fix the attention of the careful therapeutist.

It will be remembered that we have recognised four periods in the regular course of typhus:--

1st, a period of incubation; 2nd, a period of initiation; 3rd, a period of duration; 4th, a period of decline.

But, in the first place, before beginning the treatment, every farmer or grazier, or cattle-owner, who keeps a certain number of cattle, should divide his herd into several classes, in order to regulate and methodize the cares to be given to the sick.

Thus, he will form a first class, comprising the animals in a sound and healthy state, having had no intercourse, either direct or indirect, with the tainted cattle, and which he will be careful immediately to isolate and keep apart.

A second class must be formed of those beasts, which, though as yet unaffected with the distemper, have, nevertheless, been exposed more or less directly to its contagion, by living and consorting with them, or by their contact with other animals, either at fairs or markets, or in the ships and cattle-trucks on the railway during their transit from one place to another. The horned cattle composing this latter class must be carefully watched, and be made the subject of the preventive treatment, the moment the first sign appears of the working of the incubation.

A third class must be formed, consisting of cattle actually smitten with the distemper.

These divisions of animals being thus settled and separated, will diminish the labour and the cost of treatment and the liability to diffuse the complaint, especially when the epizootia begins to lose its virulence.

First Period--of Incubation.

We have said that infectious diseases, when once the frame had suffered the effects of the poisonous miasma, pursued their fatal course, and that, generally speaking, it was impossible after such infection to arrest its development. We say generally, for the typhus at the outbreak of its appearance on a virgin soil sometimes manifests itself in a benignant manner, then it becomes more destructive, by-and-bye its pernicious properties decline, and it in some sort goes out of itself. One would say that the epizootia, like those it smites, has likewise its peculiarities, its period of initiation, of duration, and of decline. There are in consequence fixed times or epochs during which the sufferers afford better scope for our means of action; at a given moment the attenuated virus, having lost much of its deadly effects, ceases to produce death, which decline is the real source of the marvellous successes obtained by certain remedies against the epizootia.

If it be true that the distemper at its period of duration, and at its most critical moment, cannot be fettered, we should not be justified in asserting positively the same, as respects the period of incubation. Indeed, we are convinced ourselves, that if ever this disease shall be clogged in the wheel, if ever its specific remedy shall be discovered, it will be within the period of incubation, when the economy begins to struggle with the first phenomena of the poisoning. Be that as it may, we cannot, in epizootic times, too earnestly enjoin the owners of cattle to submit their animals to a strict and close inspection, in order that, when the first signs of incubation appear, they may modify the animal's usual diet, and attack the disease at its birth, so as to render it abortive, if the thing can be done.

At this period we must endeavour to come to Nature's assistance, we must shake and stir up the economy, we must unseat the morbid functions which seek to master us, and then the vital force, thus solicited and stimulated, may sometimes struggle with advantage. To do this effectually, if the animal is atonic and predisposed to adynamia, if his internal organs are relaxed, we will strengthen him by administering every day a stimulating beverage. If he is confined to the stall we will give him the open air, and let him graze the fields; which is a treatment by itself for the invalid animal, so vivifying is the pure air of the common, and so thoroughly different from the atmosphere which is pent up within his stall. If the animal is strong, lusty, exuberant with health, let him be purged once or twice, the purgative to be given at intervals of twenty-four hours. (We shall give the medical formula in the chapter addressed to farmers, graziers, &c.)

This purgation, moreover, will correspond with the theory of those authors who consider the evacuations as the proper means of delivering the economy from the infectious miasms which have been absorbed.

If the beast is plethoric, recourse should sometimes be had to bleeding, especially in hot and dry seasons, like the one we have recently passed through.

These stimulative and depletive medications cannot but be favourable to the animal, since it will anticipate the treatment to which he must be submitted a few days later, when the disease shall have declared itself.

To this treatment, in some sort preventive, must be annexed an antimiasmatic beverage, either a permanganate of potash, or a solution of chlorate of potash, or of arsenic acid in powder, mixed with some aromatized beverage, or solution of arseniate of soda. These anti-typhic drinks must be discontinued on those days when the sick cattle are purged.

It need hardly be said, that during this period of incubation the feeding of the cattle must be strictly attended to, and that the animal must receive unusual hygienic care.

Second Period, or that of Initiation.

At this period the constitution and temperament of the sick cattle must first of all be deliberately studied, so as to ascertain fully which are lymphatic, which are nervous, and which are sanguine. We must notice the age, the sex, the state of gestation, and make allowance for any prior complaints to which any of the sick cattle may have been subject. For if, like certain system-mongers, we reduced the treatment of all tainted cattle to the same mathematical formula of medication, that is, either to bleeding or to purging exclusively, we should certainly increase the number of victims.

In this stage of the disease we have to contend with the derangements of the circulation and secretions. The fever is generally intense, the blood is inflamed or vitiated, the mucous membranes are dried up; shiverings, alternations of cold and heat, &c., occur. We must then mitigate these morbid phenomena either by bleeding or purging. The bleeding must be more or less copious, according to the strength of the animal. For, it must not be forgotten that we have several critical phases to pass through, and if we exhaust the animal by too largely draining him of blood, we may forfeit the success of the treatment. If bleeding is considered unnecessary, let the sufferer be purged at once, by administering either sulphate of magnesia (Epsom salts), or sulphate of soda (Glauber's salt). These purges to be taken daily, for two or three days, according to the way they operate. Linseed oil, mixed in some warm beverage, may be given instead of these, or else a mixture of rhubarb and calomel, or even a decoction of senna. Preference should be given to saline or laxative purges, as, drastic purgatives, such as aloes or jalap, sometimes concentrate the inflammation on the narrow parts of the digestive channels.

In this second stage--the period of initiation--the appetite is generally gone, the thirst excessive; so that nutritive or solid feeding must of course be suppressed.

As for the drinks, they must be cold, consisting of water with sufficient flour mixed in it to whiten it, and a little vinegar or sulphuric acid, to acidulate it. A decoction of good hay with some marine salt, or nitrate of potash; a decoction of pellitory or wall-wort, of ground-ivy, or whey, or buttermilk, likewise acidulated, and which the cattle are very partial to, will in every way be suitable for their use. If the heat of the skin diminishes, and if congestion appears to settle on the lungs, the drinks must be given warm, consisting of a decoction of borage leaves, mallows, marsh-mallow, and pellitory. In these cases, the body must be protected from chills by overlaying it with blankets, so as to keep the mass of the blood as much as possible on the surface, and check the tendency it has to load the internal organs.

By following these prescriptions, we shall answer all the conditions of the treatment during the second period. In truth, by the process of bleeding, we shall have reduced the heat of the fever, and prevented too great a flow towards the nervous, pulmonary, or digestive centres. The purgings will have acted with similar effects; and, what is more, they will have cleared the primæ viæ, and rendered the circulation of the abdominal apparatus more easy. In fine, the drinks will have contributed to assuage the violence of the fever. The washing, which must be effected with a wet sponge passed over the nose, mouth, and eyes, and then over the skin, which must afterwards be rubbed dry, will be both useful and pleasant to the sick animal. This cleansing will maintain the important functions of the skin in due order.

Some persons have advocated as most efficacious at this period hydro-therapia, or the Water-cure, in the form of warm and cold ablutions, vapour baths, &c. This treatment, so bracing by its revulsive action, and the powerful influence of which we witnessed for several years in the establishment which we superintended at Belle Vue, near Paris, might prove of some service in ox-typhus, especially in the form of the vapour bath; but it requires so much practice, and so incessant and watchful a care, that it is needful to have the process attended by an experienced practitioner.

We must remark, in addition, that the general state of the animal, and his desire for food, will show the degree of strictness and restraint which must be observed in regulating his diet. His instinct must be taken by us as a guide; and if the drinks rendered nutritive by the addition of bran, oatmeal, barley flour, or even seed of grass pounded, are relished by him, we must indulge his desires to some extent, in order to keep up his strength.

Third Period, or that of Duration.

At this stage of the distemper we must watch and follow step by step the symptoms which attend it, and come to their relief.

All the secretions have now resumed their course; from the mucous membranes there occurs a copious discharge, first of all serous, then thick and muco-purulent; the breathing may be obstructed, the diarrhoea frequent; the air infiltrates beneath the integument. The fever is sometimes continuous, sometimes intermittent. We must satisfy the cravings of the vital powers by administering the same beverages as in the preceding period. Far from checking the diarrhoea, as some advise, we must regulate the evacuations by means of laxatives, such as tartrate of potash, sulphate of magnesia, or sulphate of soda. It is very essential, indeed, that the mucous membranes of the digestive channels should be free, and not irritated by the contact of solid alimentary substances or bilious secretions.

If the diarrhoea be too frequent or irritating, we must give the sufferer night and morning a clyster, consisting of bran water.

At this period we will follow the advice given over and over again by all the physicians of the last century, and apply cauteries with red-hot iron, or fix one or two setons either on the dewlap, the neck, or the thighs, and these issues must be kept open by means of basilicon ointment. It is unquestionably of the highest importance to promote all the depurative secretions in animals whose cellular tissue is choked up with grease and lymph. Those only have got well in which the running has been regular and copious, and the wasting of the flesh progressive.

If the fever is not regular, two pills of sulphate of quinine must be given, each pill containing one gramme, one pill in the morning, the other during the day, in order to prevent the fit, which usually takes place in the evening. If the state of atony, of adynamia, comes on at this period, acetate of ammonia must be given, from one to six ounces, in a pint of water, the same to be administered in two doses; only the acidulous or alkaline drinks must be discontinued, otherwise the acetate of ammonia would be decomposed in its passage into the digestive channels. Finally, the eyes, the nostrils, and the mouth must be frequently washed with an infusion of camomile, or some other aromatic plant.

The setons must be kept up very carefully. If the sick animal relishes the nutritive beverages, let him have a decoction of bread, rice, barley, or oats.

Fourth Period, or that of Decline.

At this stage of the disease, in which adynamia predominates, everything must tend to support the organism. The drinks must be bitter and stimulating; beer, with plenty of hops in it, with an addition of powdered Peruvian bark or sulphate of iron, may be given; or a decoction of this bark, with gentian roots, centaury leaves, and hops; or again, a beverage may be administered night and morning, made of veterinary theriacum, of extract of juniper and alcohol; or finally, an infusion of aromatic plants.

If the diarrhoea be bloody and fetid, give the animal night and morning a clyster, consisting of a decoction of Jesuit's bark, adding thereto a spoonful of powdered wood charcoal, pounded to the finest powder, and passed carefully through a sieve. If the running ceases, its return must be excited by injecting in the nostrils a spoonful of sternutatory vinegar or smelling salts. Finally, the purulent boils must be opened, and dressed with stimulating ointment.

At this closing period, which determines the fate of the disease, as we say, there is a tendency to despair of the cure. Seeing the fatal course of most attacks, we lose heart, death seems inevitable, and we yield its prey to its fangs. But let us not despair; let us remember that, in these febrile infectious diseases, above all, the phenomena must almost always proceed to the last stage of exhaustion of the vital powers to render the cure attainable. Some patients, smitten with typhoid fever or cholera, have owed their lives to the indefatigable tenacity of the contest in extremis between life and death.

I still see before me a choleraic patient, whom, during the epidemic of 1849, I had left in the morning at ten o'clock, passing into the cold period. At five o'clock I returned to see him; the whole family was in tears, and the sheet had been thrown over the patient's head, as if he had already breathed his last. Time was precious to me at that fell season, and I was about to retire, when I applied my finger to the wrist of the sufferer, and felt a faint pulsation at long intervals. I threw my coat off directly, called for flannel and essential oil of mustard, which I had prescribed that morning. I set the example, and instantly the whole family helped me to rub the patient in every direction. In a quarter of an hour the heart quickened and revived, and in less than half an hour more the circulation resumed its course; at the end of an hour of this obstinate struggle the vital heat began to show itself--in a word, the patient was saved.

We must not, therefore, give up the contest until the death of the sufferer is fully ascertained; and the same persistency should be practised in the case of animals smitten with the typhus. If the circulation slackens, if the skin turns cold, take a piece of wool, coat it with rubefacient liniment, and rub the animal therewith, more particularly along the spine. Then give him a cordial drink, and pass raies de feu over the loins. All these appliances will help to stimulate the nervous system, and resuscitate the exhausted powers of life.

If, at last, we are so fortunate as to overcome the profound adynamia which has utterly prostrated the frame, we next shall have to sustain the sick animal by giving him decoctions of meat with sea-salt, or sulphate of iron added to it, or a light broth, made with meat and bread.

Herbivorous animals, put upon a carnivorous diet, would not generally endure it, of course; but some of them rather incline to unctuous beverages, and even to cooked or raw meat. All men know that certain horse trainers give race-horses a small portion of meat, especially when the races are coming on, in order to increase their mettle and strength.

We remember a sheep, which we saw at the Ecole d'Alfort, during our studies of comparative pathology and the cutaneous diseases of domestic animals, which manifested a great liking for meat, and even ate it ravenously like a glutton.

In convalescence, the animal must be sent into the open air, in some fold enclosed with bars; he must be taken every day to pasture, each day increasing the time he is allowed to feed, and gradually he will be left to return to his usual regimen. But still it must be observed, that in this distemper convalescence is long and slow, and very deceitful. A too substantial course of feeding often revives the inflammation of the intestines by irritating ulcerations not yet healed, and more than one animal which had been looked upon as cured has perished in its convalescence through a lack of watchful attention.

Herbivorous beasts, therefore, incline to and digest animal food; consequently, we must give sick oxen meat broths, pure milk, or milk and water. With these must be mixed wheat straw chopped small, for hay or even oat straw would swell and distend the stomachs.

The typhus in this epizootia is not regular in its progress and development. Frequently the nervous or pulmonary phenomena predominate, when the treatment, such as we have just explained, must be modified. We must also bear in mind that nature does not divide a disease into periods, like those we have adopted to render our exposition of the symptoms more intelligible and the treatment itself more methodical.

If the nervous form of the disease prevails--if the animal shows alternations of dulness and restlessness--if, pressure on the spine is very painful--above all, if, in bulls, for instance, there is plethora, let the bleedings and purgings be increased in order to abate the nervous erethismus. In this form, the violence of the attack usually carries off the beast. Should there, however, be any chance of saving him it will be by employing this medication, which is at once revulsive and depletive, notwithstanding the well-known fact that bleedings, far from relieving the nervous system, sometimes aggravate its irritability.

A general ablution with cold water may be tried in desperate cases. The animal must then be immediately well rubbed, and covered with wool, in order to excite a thorough reaction.

In the pulmonary form of the typhus, but only during the acute stage, the drinks must be warm and emollient, composed of a decoction of soothing substances, with mallows, &c.; or one of linseed, to which must be added some oxymel of squills and opium. The purgatives must be non-stimulating; and emetics, freely diluted, for instance, will be very serviceable.

At the third and fourth period in this pulmonary form of the disease, adopt the treatment prescribed for intestinal typhus.

We might have greatly enlarged the list of the pharmaceutic agents, but the richer a treatment is in remedies the poorer it is in cures. We have made choice of the simplest and safest among all the remedies advised by experienced men, making allowance for the difficulties inherent to the number of animals, the mode of application, the cost, &c., always keeping in view the life of the animal to be saved and the interest of the cattle owners.

We think that the treatment by inoculation might have prevented the typhus in a very large proportion, and that the curative medication might have saved many of the infected cattle at the worst period of the epizootia.

Such, then, are the results which will one day be obtained, when we shall be able to supersede the barbarous process of general extermination, by the adoption of a rational treatment, founded at once on science and practical experience.

IV.

Hygienic Measures to be taken against the Extension of the Contagion--Acts and Orders concerning Sanitary Police Regulations.

I have purposely neglected, in discussing the various plans of treatment, certain measures to be adopted with the object of opposing the spread of the contagion. The memorandum published on this subject by the Privy Council, and drawn up by Dr. Thudichum, is so complete and so clear, that we can find nothing better to say. I recommend its perusal to all who possess horned cattle, and who have occasion to send them to any distance. It is of the highest importance to follow this judicious advice, as the general interest will constitute here the safeguard of the pecuniary interests of each in particular. I add to this memorandum upon hygienic measures, the consolidated and amended acts and orders published under the head of "Sanitary Police." In this way those interested will have beneath their eyes all which it is important for them to know, both in a medical and legal point of view.

MEMORANDUM on the Principles and Practice of Disinfection, as applicable to the present Epidemic of Cattle Disease. By J. L. W. THUDICHUM, M.D.

I.--PRINCIPLES OF DISINFECTION.

1. The term disinfection signifies the removal and destruction, or destruction and subsequent removal of the products of destruction, of all matters actually being or containing products of disease capable of reproducing disease in other animals.

2. If the same processes and means, as used for this purpose, are applied to the purification and deodorization of places and things not actually infected, but capable or suspected of being infected, then these preventive measures are practically and properly included under the definition of disinfection.

3. The reproducers of the infectious matter or contagion are all kinds of cattle of the ox tribe, which also are at present in this country the only animals liable to its specific effects. It is probable that the contagion adheres with particular pertinacity to all secretions and discharges from sick animals. For this reason, fæces or droppings, urine, ruminated food, all secretions from the mouth, nose, and eyes, and any sore parts of the surface of the diseased animals must be considered as the principal and primary carriers of the infectious matter or plague poison. It is also probable that many parts of animals which have died from the cattle plague, or have been killed during advanced stages of the disease, are infectious, some because they are primarily imbued with the contagion, others because they have been in contact with it after the death of the animal. Skins, hides, hair, horns, and hoofs, must therefore always be treated with precaution. The chances of infection by flesh, fat, cleaned guts, and blood, are perhaps more remote, but cannot be lost sight of.

4. The cattle plague, although affecting every part of the animal, shows its visible effects most extensively in the intestinal canal. It is believed, and apparently upon good grounds, that the intestinal discharges are the principal agents, upon the distribution of which mainly depends the spread of the disorder.

5. It follows from the above, that all articles which have been in contact with a diseased animal, or any of its discharges, particularly its fæces, are capable of carrying the infection for an indefinite time, and must be looked upon as being actually infectious to other healthy animals. Such are racks of wood or iron; cribs or mangers of wood, iron, or stone; articles used for fastening animals; leather collars and straps, ropes and chains; all harness of any animals used for drawing, and all carts, waggons, and carriages which they have actually been drawing; the stalls or sheds in which animals have been standing; the whole lengths of the gutters and drains through which their urine has been flowing; the entire surface over which their manure has been drawn, and all implements with which the removal has been effected; the entire dung-heap upon which infected manure has been put, and the fluid contents of the manure pit, or of the special receptacle for the urine; yards or sheds in which cattle have been kept to tread down long straw, and the whole of such straw and manure, as also the ground beneath them; paths and roads upon which diseased cattle have walked or been carried; fields and meadows upon which they have been grazing; all carts, carriages, trucks and railway trucks in which diseased cattle have been conveyed, and all the platforms, railings, bridges, and boards upon which they have been moved thereto; as also all apparatus which has been used to pen, tie, lift, haul, lower, and fix them; the clothes, and particularly shoes and boots, and iron-pointed sticks of drivers and their dogs; the apparel of all cattle-herds or attendants, particularly their shoes and boots; the shoes and boots of all persons visiting places where diseased cattle are or have been standing; and, in general, the clothes of all persons visiting infected places, ships, and all parts of the platforms, stages, stairs and bridges, hoists and cranes used for embarking and landing the animals; markets, and all sheds, and pens, and implements used in contact with cattle; slaughter-houses, and all persons and implements in them which have been employed upon sick cattle, as also sundry parts or organs which come from sick animals killed in slaughter-houses; knackers' yards, trucks or carts, horses, men, and implements which have been employed in the disposal of sick or dead animals; wells and ponds from which diseased cattle have been drinking, or into which any portion of their excreta has had any opportunity of flowing, directly or indirectly; all fodder, grass, hay, straw, clover, &c., and particularly remnants of fodder upon which diseased cattle have been feeding; and, in general, all persons, animals, places, buildings, and movable things which have been in contact with matters proceeding from diseased cattle, or with such diseased cattle themselves. To the above-mentioned places and things any of the processes and agents enumerated and described in the following may have to be applied.

II.--PRACTICE OF DISINFECTION.

A. Disinfection by Earth. 1. Burying.--All matters that can be buried, so as to remain covered with a thick layer of ground or earth are innocuous. The ground chosen for such interment should be dry. The quickest, and cheapest, and most certain way of disinfecting an animal dead from the plague is to bury it entire.

2. The droppings, and all straw and other matters contaminated therewith, may also be buried into ground where they are not likely to be disturbed for a long time. The places from which such droppings have been removed to be cleaned and disinfected as will be described below.

3. Manure heaps and the down-trodden manure of cattle yards, if they have become infected by even a small quantity of the droppings of a diseased animal, should be carefully shifted to a suitable piece of ground, and there be transformed into compost heaps. A layer of manure one or two feet in thickness should be covered all over with six inches of dry earth, ashes, and mineral rubbish; upon this another layer of manure may be placed, and then again a layer of earth, and so forth, until the whole of the manure is stacked; it should be covered all over with a continuous layer of earth of from six inches to one foot in thickness. If the manure heap or yard manure cannot be shifted, it may be covered on the spot with a layer of dry earth, after which all animals are to be kept away from it.

4. If the floor of any shed or stable in which diseased cattle has been standing is not constructed with special water-tight and impenetrable material, it must be assumed to be infected to the depth of at least six inches. This ground should therefore be removed, together with any stones, pavements, or wood work which may have been in contact with it, carted to a piece of dry land and buried. Half-rotten wood is a particularly favourable carrier of infection. Mortar, bricks, loam, or any other lining of the sides of a pen in which a diseased animal has been standing, should be broken out and buried.

B. Disinfection by Fire. 1. Burning.--All infected articles of a minor value, or made of incombustible materials, can be disinfected by exposing them to a heat which will char organic matter. To this class of articles may be reckoned racks of wood or iron; cribs or mangers of wood, iron or stone; leather collars and straps, ropes and chains; dry manure, residues of fodder from which diseased cattle have eaten; and all such small articles of little value which can easily be replaced by new ones. Chains may be exposed to a dull red heat; all other articles may be heated over a fire of coal, brushwood, or straw until well scorched. All new articles of ironware should be bought in a galvanised state, to prevent the formation of rust, the accumulations of which form convenient seats for infectious matter, and for the same purpose it is desirable that iron articles which have been disinfected by heat as above should afterwards be either galvanised, or, at least, while hot be treated with resin, to cover them with a durable varnish, or should be varnished or painted.

C. Disinfection by Chloride of Lime.--Chloride of lime, or bleaching powder, is the most powerful, the cheapest and most easily managed of all artificial disinfectants. It can be had everywhere, and at any time, and in quantities sufficient for every purpose. It should as much as possible he applied in solution, of a strength varying somewhat with the particular purpose for which it is to be employed; and after it has been allowed to act upon the surface or matter to be disinfected a reasonable time, should be washed off, together with all products of decomposition. As chloride of lime does not destroy only the infectious matter in a mixture, but destroys all organic matter without distinction, it is not applicable to large quantities of matter, such as the manure of cattle, dung-heaps, &c., inasmuch as twice or three times the weight of these matters of chloride of lime would be required for their effectual destruction and disinfection. It is further inapplicable to all matters rich in ammonia, particularly putrid urine, as it destroys the ammonia and evolves a large amount of gases, some of which have a repugnant odour, and are perhaps not quite innocuous. But for the disinfection of surfaces of things and places no better or more suitable agent than chloride of lime is at present known to science.

D. Special Directions for the Disinfection of Stables, Sheds, Vans, Railway Trucks, and Cattle Ships, and of Persons and Things connected with them.--1. After such a place has been cleaned by mechanical means, scraping, &c., as much as possible, and all manure and dirt has been carefully buried, the entire surface which has been contaminated, or is likely to have been contaminated, should be covered with a layer of chloride of lime in powder. The powder should be worked about with a broom until equally distributed. It is intended to disinfect the water to be used in the washing process which is now to commence. Clean water, from a hose in which it flows under pressure, or from a force-pump, garden-engine, or from large watering-pots or water-cans, or poured freely from buckets, should now be applied to the entire surface by one person, while another at the same time scrubs the entire surface; and particularly all crevices, joints, and irregularities. The washing water and chloride of lime are then to be worked down the gutters, into the sinks, cesses, or natural watercourses. No washing water from any infected place or thing should ever be allowed to flow into any cesspool, urine-hold, dung-heap, pond, sewer, or natural watercourse, without having previously been mixed and stirred with a liberal amount of chloride of lime. When the place has thus been scrubbed until the water flows off clean, it is ready for effectual disinfection.

2. For this purpose a solution of chloride of lime in water, in the proportion of one pound of the powder to one gallon of water, is made. For the lair of one animal from six to ten gallons of such fluid should be prepared. This fluid is now distributed over the whole surface to be disinfected, gradually, by squirting from a syringe, or by pumping through a force-pump, garden-engine, or by watering from a watering-pot or can with a finely pierced rose. All woodwork, stones, bricks, cement, mortar, all fixtures of whatever material, should be well wetted with the solution, and immediately be scrubbed with a hard brush. Floor and ceiling are also scrubbed, and the whole is left in this wet state covered with the chloride of lime solution for at least one hour, during which time care is taken that no parts become dry.

3. As the chloride of lime and the products of its decomposing action upon infectious matters may be hurtful to cattle, these matters have to be carefully washed off by a second and final flushing. For this too much water and too much scrubbing cannot be employed. Care should be taken to apply the clean water always to the highest parts, so as to cause it to flow thence to the lower parts, and to wash away the waste from the lower parts before applying any fresh water to the upper parts.

4. Care should also be taken to rinse and flush every broom which has worked away sediment and waste from the lower parts into and through the gutters and drains before applying it again to the clean upper parts. Care should also be taken that the working persons should not step from the dirty or partially cleansed places on to the clean ones, as this may suffice to bring infection back to the disinfected place.

5. Lastly, all persons employed in this work, having swept and flushed the gutters with the same care as the lairs, are collected, together with all engines and tools which they have used, as near as possible to the sink or place of final egress of water from the premises, and there disinfected as will be described.

The tools, such as hooks, forks, spades, hoes, barrows, &c., are scrubbed with the above solution of chloride of lime, and subsequently water until clean; they are then repeatedly wetted with the solution, and after it has had time to disinfect the entire surfaces of them, they are washed clean and laid up, or hung up to dry.

The workmen, then, having finished the disinfection and flushing of all objects and surfaces, effect their own disinfection in the following manner:--They wash their boots most carefully with chloride of lime and water, scraping the soles and scrubbing the seams where the soles join the upper leather. They wash their hands and arms, and by means of clean rags or sponges they remove any splashes from their clothes. After this they go indoors, remove all clothes from head to foot, wash their bodies, and particularly their hands, faces, hair and feet, with plenty of soap and water, and put on fresh clothes and linen. The clothes and linen which they have taken off should be treated as infected, set to soak immediately in boiling water and afterwards disinfected, or in water containing two ounces of chloride of lime to the gallon in solution, or containing four ounces of Condy's red permanganate of potash fluid in solution; or the clothes and linen should be put in a copper and boiled and subsequently washed. All articles of little value which are much soiled should be burned on a bright fire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III. GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS.

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

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

Pure air; dry, spacious, well-ventilated and well-drained clean sheds; clean and dry meadows; plenty of pure water; frequent currying and washing; the prevention of the development, by the destruction of the germs, of internal and external parasites, particularly entozoa; proper food in suitable quantities, and at proper times; protection from inclement weather; the utmost cleanliness in the removal of manure; the storing of the manure at a great distance from the cattle-shed, and, in addition, the most conscientious observance of the precautionary and disinfecting measures above described--all these measures and agents together will secure the utmost possible health of stock and the prosperity of the agriculturist and dairyman. But the neglect of any one of them will make the stock liable to become infected, and the more so the more several or all collateral conditions of the healthy existence of animals are neglected. The negligent man is therefore certain to lose, to injure his neighbour by defeating his precautions, and to damage society; but the watchful and painstaking man will be rewarded not only by the preservation of his property, but particularly by the consciousness that it has been preserved by his own care and attention, and that thereby he has also benefited the state.

* * * * *

This consolidates and amends the former Orders.

(Copy.)

At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, the 22nd day of September, 1865.

By the Lords of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council.

PRESENT.

Lord President. Duke of Somerset. Earl of Clarendon. Earl de Grey and Ripon. Mr. Secretary Cardwell. Mr. H. A. Bruce.

WHEREAS by an Act passed in the session of the eleventh and twelfth years of Her present Majesty's reign, chapter one hundred and seven, intituled "An Act to prevent until the 1st day of September, 1850, and to the end of the then next session of Parliament, the spreading of contagious or infectious disorders amongst sheep, cattle, and other animals," and which has since been from time to time continued by divers subsequent Acts, and lastly by an Act passed in the session of the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter one hundred and nineteen, it is (amongst other things) enacted that it shall be lawful for the Lords and others of Her Majesty's Privy Council, or any two or more of them, from time to time, to make such Orders and Regulations as to them may seem necessary for the purpose of prohibiting or regulating the removal to or from such parts or places as they may designate in such Order or Orders, of sheep, cattle, horses, swine, or other animals, or of meat, skins, hides, horns, hoofs, or other part of any animals, or of hay, straw, fodder, or other articles likely to propagate infection; and also for the purpose of purifying any yard, stable, outhouse, or other place, or any waggons, carts, carriages, or other vehicles; and also for the purpose of directing how any animals dying in a diseased state, or any animals, parts of animals, or other things seized under the provisions of the said Act, are to be disposed of; and also for the purpose of causing notices to be given of the appearance of any disorder among sheep, cattle, or other animals, and to make any other Orders or Regulations for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of the said Act, and again to revoke, alter, or vary any such Orders or Regulations; and that all provisions for any of the purposes aforesaid in any such Order or Orders contained shall have the like force and effect as if the same had been inserted in the said Act; and that all persons offending against the said Act shall for each and every offence forfeit and pay any sum not exceeding twenty pounds, or such smaller sum as the said Lords or others of Her Majesty's Privy Council may in any case by such Order direct:--

And whereas a contagious or infectious disorder now prevails among the cattle of Great Britain, which is generally designated the "cattle plague," and may be recognised by the following symptoms:--

"Great depression of the vital powers, frequent shivering, staggering gait, cold extremities, quick and short breathing, drooping head, reddened eyes, with a discharge from them, and also from the nostrils, of a mucous nature; raw-looking places on the inner side of the lips and roof of the mouth, diarrhoea or dysenteric purging:"

And whereas several Orders, dated respectively the 24th of July, the 11th, 18th, and 26th of August, 1865, have been made under the authority of the said Acts by the Lords of Her Majesty's Privy Council, with a view to check the spreading of the said disorder:

And whereas it is expedient to consolidate and amend the said Orders:

Now, therefore, the Lords of Her Majesty's Privy Council do hereby, by virtue of, and in exercise of the powers given by, the said Act, so continued as aforesaid, order as follows:--

1. This Order shall extend to all parts of Great Britain.

2. The said Orders dated respectively the 24th of July, the 11th, 18th, and 26th of August, 1865, are revoked, with the exception of so much of the said Order of the 24th of July, 1865, as empowers the Clerk of Her Majesty's Privy Council to appoint Inspectors within the limits of the Metropolitan Police District, provided that such revocation shall not affect any appointment made, or any act done, or penalty recoverable, under any Order hereby revoked.

3. In this Order the word "animal" shall mean any cow, heifer, bull, bullock, ox, calf, sheep, lamb, goat, or swine; and the word "Inspector" shall include any Inspector appointed under this Order, or under any of the said revoked Orders.

4. Whenever the Local Authority, as hereinafter defined, shall be satisfied of the existence of the said disorder in, or have reason to apprehend its approach to, the district over which his or their jurisdiction extends, it shall be lawful for such Local Authority, if he or they shall think fit, from time to time to appoint one or more Veterinary Surgeon or Surgeons, or other duly qualified person or persons, to be an Inspector or Inspectors, for the purpose of carrying into effect the rules and regulations made by this Order, within the district for which he or they shall have been appointed. And the same authority may, from time to time, revoke such appointment.

5. Subject to the powers herein reserved to the Clerk of Her Majesty's Privy Council, the Local Authority within the City of London, and the liberties thereof, shall be the Lord Mayor; in any municipal borough in England or Wales, the Mayor; in any Petty Sessional Division in England or Wales (exclusive so far as relates to the jurisdiction of the Inspector of so much of the said division as lies, within the limits of a municipal borough for which an Inspector has been appointed), the Justices acting in and for such Petty Sessional Division. The Local Authority in any burgh or town in Scotland which is subject to the jurisdiction of a Provost or other Principal Magistrate, shall be the Provost or such Principal Magistrate; and in any other place in Scotland not within the jurisdiction of such Provost or other Principal Magistrate, the Justices of the County in Sessions assembled.

6. Every Inspector shall from time to time report to the Local Authority by which he is appointed, the steps taken by him for carrying into effect the regulations prescribed by this Order; and the Local Authority shall certify, in such manner as may be directed by one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, the number of days that such Inspector has actually been engaged in the performance of his duty, and the number of miles travelled by him while thus engaged.

7. Every Inspector shall furnish the Lords of the Council with such information in regard to the said disorder, as their Lordships may, from time to time, require.

8. Every person having in his possession, or under his custody, any animal labouring under the said disorder, shall forthwith give notice thereof to the Inspector of the district within which such person resides, or if no Inspector shall have been appointed for the district within which such person resides, then to the Officers hereinafter named, according to the place of residence of the person obliged to give notice; that is to say: within the Metropolitan Police District, to the said Clerk of the Privy Council; within the City of London, and the liberties thereof, to the Lord Mayor; within any other borough, burgh, or town subject to the jurisdiction of a Mayor, Provost, or other Principal Magistrate, to such Mayor, Provost, or other Principal Magistrate; elsewhere in England, to the Clerk of the Justices acting in and for the Petty Sessional Division; and elsewhere in Scotland, to the Clerk of the Peace of the county.

9. Every Inspector shalt have power to enter upon and inspect any premises or place in which any animal or animals may be found within the district for which he is appointed, and to examine and inspect, whenever and wherever he may deem it necessary, any animal within such district.

10. Every Inspector shall have power within his district to seize and slaughter, or cause to be seized and slaughtered, and to be buried, as hereinafter directed, in any convenient place, any animal labouring under the said disorder.

11. Every Inspector shall have power within his district to cause to be cleansed and disinfected, in any manner which he may think proper, any premises in which animals labouring under the said disorder have been, or may be, and to cause to be disinfected, and if necessary destroyed, any fodder, manure, or refuse matter, which he may deem likely to propagate the said disorder. And every owner or occupier of such premises shall obey any order given by such Inspector for that purpose.

12. Every Inspector shall have power within his district to direct that any animal which he suspects to be labouring under the said disorder, shall be kept separate from animals free from the said disorder. And every person having in his possession, or under his custody, such animal, shall obey any order given by such Inspector for that purpose.

13. Every person having in his possession, or under his custody, any animal labouring under the said disorder, shall, as far as practicable, keep such animal separate from all other animals, and shall not, if the animal be within a district for which an Inspector has been appointed, remove the same from his land or premises, without the licence of the Inspector.

14. No person shall send or bring to any fair or market, or expose for sale, or send or carry by any railway, or by any ship or vessel coastwise, or place upon, or drive along, any highway or the sides thereof; any animal labouring under the said disorder.

15. No person in any district for which an Inspector has been appointed shall, without the licence of the Inspector, send or bring to or from market, or remove from his land or premises, any animal which has been in the same shed or stable, or has been in the same herd or flock, or has been in contact, with any animal labouring under the said disorder.

16. No person shall place, or keep, any animal labouring under the said disorder in any common or unenclosed land, or, if the animal be in a district for which an Inspector has been appointed, in any field or pasture, where, in the judgment of the Inspector, such animal may be likely to propagate the said disorder.

17. All animals having died of the said disorder, or having been slaughtered on account thereof; shall be buried with their skins, and with a sufficient quantity of quick-lime, or other disinfectant, as soon as practicable, and shall be covered with at least five feet of earth, or shall, in districts for which an Inspector has been appointed, with the consent of the owner, be otherwise disposed of; in manner directed by the Inspector.

18. During the continuance of the "cattle plague" within the said City of London, or that part of the Metropolitan Police District which is under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Board of Works, no animal shall be brought or sent to the Metropolitan Cattle Market, or any other market within the said City or the said part of the Metropolitan Police District, except for the purpose of being there sold for immediate slaughtering; and every such animal, as soon as sold, shall be marked for slaughter, in the manner in which cattle are ordinarily marked for slaughter in the Metropolitan Cattle Market.

19. Whenever any Local Authority, as hereinbefore defined, declares, by notice published in any newspaper circulating within his or their jurisdiction, that it is expedient that animals, as hereinbefore defined, or some specified description thereof, shall be excluded from any specified market or fair within that jurisdiction, for a time to be specified in such notice, it is hereby ordered, that after the publication of such notice, it shall not be lawful for any person to bring or send such animals or description thereof into such market or fair: provided always, that this clause of this Order shall not, unless renewed by a further Order, be in force after the expiration of three calendar months from the date of this Order.

20. Every person offending against this Order shall, in pursuance of the said Act, for every such offence forfeit any sum not exceeding twenty pounds which the Justices before whom he or she shall be convicted of such offence may think fit to impose.

(Signed) ARTHUR HELPS.

FOOTNOTES:

Since these lines were put into the printer's hands, the French Government have proposed to other nations to take measures collectively to prevent the pilgrimage to Mecca continuing to be a cause of the spread of cholera. We hasten to render justice to this prudent initiative. But why not take the same measures against typhus which are judged necessary against cholera?

The typhus which broke out fifteen days ago near Roubaix, in France, bordering upon Belgium, where the epizootia rages, appears to have been stifled in its focus by the instantaneous extermination of the whole herd in which it declared itself.

"It is amusing to read authors of the last century on the treatment of this disease. They were far more confident in their powers than we helpless creatures pretend to be. The directions given are full and distinct, and in chapters boldly headed 'The Cure.' The beast is to be bled, washed, and hot vinegar and water, with aromatic herbs, may be placed in the stable to revive the cattle. The animal must be rubbed a quarter of an hour, both morning and evening, and the bags of a milch cow should be anointed morning and evening with warm oil. A rowel is to be made in the dewlap by taking a skein of hemp, tow, or twisted packthread, a foot long, and as thick as a man's thumb. The prescriptions are most amusing. They may serve to entertain those who want the cure at present, and for this reason I reproduce one or two."--Gamgee, Letter on 21st August.

Dr. Letheby reported that 12,916 lbs., or more than five tons of meat, had been condemned in the City markets during the past week as unfit for human food. It consisted of 64 sheep, 4 calves, 7 pigs, 142 quarters of beef, and 361 joints and pieces of meat; 5377 lbs. were diseased or from animals that had died of disease, and the rest was putrid. All of it was destroyed. Yesterday, a sub-committee of the Metropolitan Plague Committee, at a meeting at the Mansion House, passed an unanimous resolution, on the motion of Mr. Brewster, recommending that, as unexpected and insuperable difficulties had arisen in carrying out the purposes for which they were appointed, the money already subscribed should be returned to the subscribers, after deducting, pro ratâ, the expenses already incurred.

For the disinfection of railway trucks and cattle ships, see Special Memorandum.

THIRD PART.

To Farmers and Graziers.

You would have had just cause to reproach me with a want of common sense if I had obliged you to read a book of two hundred pages, and to lose your time in looking for the advice you will require, if the cattle plague should visit your stalls and herds, instead of being able to turn at once to the matter which concerns you. I have taken up my pen on purpose to be of service to you; this is my principal duty, which I am now going to fulfil by summing up in a few pages the most important facts which have been described in the two first parts of this work.

The cattle plague, which has lately fallen upon horned beasts, is a plague, no doubt: but there are different species of plagues, and it is necessary that you should know that this disease is one arising from the absorption of seeds and germs with which the air is impregnated, and which is drawn by the animals into their bodies when breathing the air around them. When these germs, these infectious poisons, have penetrated into the lungs and blood of the animals, these seeds of infection remain there from eight to twelve days without producing any very perceptible effects; but after that time the tainted animal becomes dejected, loses his appetite, is seized with fever, laborious breathing, and diarrhoea, to which sum of disorders in the health of oxen, cows, &c., the name of typhus has been given; or, as this distemper is contagious in the highest degree, it has also been called the contagious typhus.

You may compare this disease, in order to form a more precise idea of it, to the small-pox, which sometimes afflicts your children, or to typhoid fever. These complaints, which are familiar to most of you, have some resemblance to the typhus of the ox. Only in the small-pox, which is caught by contagion, and which seldom attacks more than once, like typhus, the disease is localized on the skin; whilst in the cattle plague the internal organs are the principal seat of the evil.

This comparison will show you at once that the cattle plague, or rather the cattle typhus, can only be cured when the disease has run its full course, as you have observed in a person tainted with small-pox; so that your task must be to help the sick animal to endure his complaint until the end, or until he is cured; and you must not attempt to check it by violent means, for if you did you would hasten the death which you desire to prevent. You will likewise understand that if the disease--as is certainly the case--does not attack the same animal twice, it would be very beneficial to inoculate the animal whilst he is sound and healthy, whenever this scourge threatens--as in the present time--to attack all cattle. Perhaps you may be told that inoculation, which prevents small-pox in man, cannot be applicable to cattle; that animals inoculated with the virus of the typhus have all died of the consequences of the operation, and so on. To all these objections you will answer, with that downright good sense which belongs to your class, that Nature cannot have two weights and two measures; and that if the inoculation of the typhus kills animals, whilst the inoculation of the small-pox saves men, both maladies being governed by the same laws, it is the inexperience of physicians, and not the operation itself, which must be made to account for it.

In a word, to sow virus is to reap it; but there are many ways of sowing it, and one man will reap a rich harvest, whilst another shall gather nothing but tares. Let those unbelievers say what they like, and take my word for it, that we shall one day cure typhus as frequently as we do small-pox, by inoculating it, and when it appears in spite of that course, by treating it medicinally.

This contagious disease is very frequent in certain countries, principally in Russia and Hungary, on the banks of the great rivers which empty themselves into the Black Sea. In those remote countries, when the seasons are either too rainy or too hot--and you know what a summer that of 1865 has been--the pastures generate the pestilential poisons of the typhus, the cattle absorb these destructive principles, and die of them.

But as the herds of cattle in those countries are bred for sale, and are sent for that purpose to other countries, to France, Italy, England, &c., the animals which have had the germ of the disease transport it with them wherever they go. Thus, it is certain that some oxen conveyed from Russia and Hungary, where the typhus frequently rages, brought the disease with them into Great Britain in the month of last June; and as the complaint is communicated from one animal to another, and afterwards at great distances, it spread with great rapidity over England and Scotland. So great are its powers of contagion, that some of the cattle sent back from England have transmitted the disease to Holland, in the first place, and afterwards to Belgium; and it was feared at one time that all Europe would be invaded by it.

The first belief was--and everything tends to make good the opinion--that the typhus originally came from abroad; but many respectable authorities, seeing the foul and nauseous state of the stalls and cowsheds both in London and elsewhere, the overcrowding of the animals, and the general neglect to which they are exposed, have asserted that the disease had its origin in London. This, we repeat, is not likely to have been the case, but it is not absolutely impossible; at all events, there can be no question that the grievous conditions in which some of your brethren keep their cattle have contributed to spread the distemper, independently of other causes.

Moreover, it is necessary to tell you, that sheep and horned cattle are of all living animals those which are most sensitive to the influence of contagious diseases. Every year you see instances of this fact in your own fields and meadows. Your sheep, you all know, easily contract the small-pox, worm diseases both on the skin and in the interior of the body; your oxen have aphthous diseases, disorders of the blood and the lungs, scabs and carbuncles--diseases which are all more or less contagious, and which are generally brought on by want of care, and, above all, by improper feeding: by which you see how much of the sufferings of the cattle, and of the heavy losses to you which follow them, depends upon yourselves and may be avoided. Besides, these poor creatures, which some of you treat so harshly, are extremely susceptible, and the blows they receive may easily affect their whole mass of blood. You must, therefore, for your own sakes, treat them more kindly and gently.

Therefore, the typhus which was imported from Russia into England, finding your cattle in such wretched conditions of cleanliness and health, was propagated amongst them with fearful rapidity. When once the disease had developed itself within your sheds and stalls, it would have been the wisest plan immediately to kill the sick cattle, or to treat them medicinally, carefully abstaining from driving to market any of your beasts which had been exposed to the contagion. But unfortunately you did not act in this manner; many amongst you could not put up patiently with your losses, and only consulting your private interest, to the detriment of the general good, you sold your sick cows and oxen, and sowing the contagion about the country and through the markets, the scourge was soon scattered in every direction, so that instead of stifling the disease at its birth everything was done to propagate and diffuse it.

Now, if we add, that the germs of this typhus penetrate everywhere, that it is sufficient to convey sick cattle along the public roads, and by this means to pass near farms and meadows containing healthy cattle, to transmit the contagion, that these noxious germs impregnate your own clothes, the fleece of sheep, and every article, implement, and vehicle used in agriculture, you cannot but see how often, though unwillingly, you must have disseminated the evil far and wide.

The germs, the miasmata of the disease, insinuate themselves not only upon animals and men, but they shed their virus upon the grass of the fields, the walls of the stalls and stables, and every agricultural utensil. Every tainted animal scatters the pestilential and contagious germs, not only by the air he expires, but by his droppings, and after death by his mortal remains--his hide, his horns, his entrails, his flesh--all of which disseminate the deadly germs into the atmosphere, which afterwards diffuses them in every direction.

The germs of this virulent distemper have no doubt smitten some cattle which appeared in the best health and conditions, those of the rich as well as those of the poor; but, just in the same manner as the cholera chiefly fixes itself upon the sickly, the ill-fed, the unclean, upon those who live in crowded dwellings and badly ventilated rooms; so, too, does the typhus choose its victims among the stalls and stables of those graziers who keep their cows tied up for years to the rack, giving them neither air nor exercise, and feeding them, not on that diet which their health requires, but on those things which add to their milk and increase their flesh. It follows, of course, that the greater number of these cows, more or less disordered by this long course of baleful treatment, and many of which die of consumption, after their deteriorated milk has infused into men the seeds of diseases, must afford an easy prey to the typhus, to receive which they seem almost expressly to have been trained.

It is highly important then, farmers and graziers, that you should be able to recognise this ox-typhus; in the first place, that you may take the necessary measures to prevent its contagion; and secondly, that you may apply the treatment which shall have been recommended to you.

You must at all times, but above all when the contagious disease is raging, keep a watchful eye on your cattle. If you notice in their gait, in their looks, about their ears, any unusual signs; if they seem to you less eager, less active, less vigilant, if they leave any part of their rations when in the stables, or if, when in the fields, they no longer browse with that continual alacrity which sometimes it is difficult to divert them from, be upon your guard, and dread the outbreak of the complaint. If to these changes of minor importance is added an appetite really less acute, if the rumination is less regular, if the animal looks sad and dispirited, if he exhibits an unwonted look of gloom, if his leaden eye continues fixed, astonished, be sure a morbid change is inwardly at work, and that this cruel distemper is spreading through his frame.

By-and-bye the animal loses his appetite more and more; rumination is shorter and less frequent; he holds his head down, his ears sink and fall; he grinds his teeth. Then as to the cows: their milk, which was already diminished, suddenly dries up altogether, and that lowness of spirits which had been visible for some days before, passes into stupor. If at this time you touch their horns, their extremities, their hide in any part, you find that all these different parts are sometimes warm, sometimes cold. From this day forward you will witness, one by one, a succession of disorders in the animal's health: partial shiverings at the attachment of the fore and hind limbs, loud panting breathing, with slight cough, the urine scanty and thick, the droppings hard and constipated, and finally, general excessive warmth. If you press the back the pressure will be painful, and all the signs of intense fever will be manifest.

Already these indications have divulged the nature of the malady you have to deal with; but others more significant succeed them which remove every doubt. The breathing becomes more hurried and oppressed, more puffy; from the eyes, nostrils, and mouth there issues a discharge which, thin and irritant at first, soon becomes thick and purulent, and of a fetid smell. Diarrhoea takes the place of constipation; the sexual organs of the cow are red and inflamed, and furrowed with livid streaks. The cattle grow leaner and leaner, some of them dying at this period. If they still hold out, the diarrhoea becomes more frequent, more fetid, and sometimes bloody; gases are developed under the skin, along the spine, where they form wide flat tumours, which crackle when pressed upon with the fingers. Finally, the mucus which runs from the head becomes still thicker and more fetid; a glutinous foam stops up the mouth; the eyes, filled with humour, sink in the orbit; the bodily warmth decreases, the animal sways his head from right to left, becomes insensible, cold; his head lolls on one side, and he dies, panting, from exhaustion and asphyxia, the tenth or twelfth day after the disease has been confirmed.

The carcass exhibits a repulsive appearance; the hide is dry, excoriated, and cracked; it sticks to the bones, which show the form of a skeleton, and the putrid decomposition, which had already set in before death, seizes rapidly on all the tissues.

The course of the disease is not always the same. Sometimes the animal is agitated at first, and all the functions of life are so disturbed that death comes on in the two or three first days. At other times, the lungs are more affected than the other internal organs; the cough is more intense, the breath hurried and obstructed, the excess of mucus preventing the air from passing into the chest.

When once you have seen this disease it is impossible to mistake it for any other, unless it be the chest complaint called peripneumonia, which is likewise contagious. But in this disease, as the Report of the Royal Agricultural Society states, the attack is generally insidious; the eyes preserve their vivacity, and the appetite is not lost until towards the close. A short, dry cough shows itself from the outbreak, and persists. The breathing is frequent and painful; the sides of the chest when struck with the fingers give out the hard, solid sound of a full barrel, this percussion being painful. The eyes, nose, and mouth do not discharge those purulent secretions seen in typhus; the diarrhoea only comes on at the end, being less frequent and fetid. In the milch cows the milk decreases, but is not quite suppressed. The heat of the horns and lower extremities is retained. The peripneumonia, in a word, runs its course more regularly, and carries off the animal about the fourth week. Thus it will be seen that the two distempers widely differ in their symptoms.

Every beast which dies of the contagious typhus, bears on its digestive organs the traces of the malady, more or less strongly marked. The third and fourth stomachs and the intestines exhibit red or livid patches, and at other times ulcerations.

The cattle plague is by far the most formidable malady which can affect animals. When left to itself, or treated without discernment, it carries off ninety cattle out of a hundred. In prior visitations, especially that of 1750, when six millions of horned beasts were swept off in Europe, England lost from three to four hundred thousand; and we may suppose that the number of cattle which have perished since last June exceeds sixty thousand.

The treatment is very difficult, owing to the contagious character of the disease, and it has given rise to much discussion. In some countries, the governments, considering the distemper incurable, only seek to stamp it out wherever it may appear. They slaughter all the sick cattle, and even those which had come near them, allowing a compensation of half the value of the beast. This measure has not always proved successful, the disease having in spite of it sometimes extended over the whole of the country thus defended from its diffusion.

England protected by the sea, and which has been spared for a century, was taken somewhat unawares, so that some uncertainty has been witnessed in the measures employed to arrest its course. In some districts, the parties interested have had the good sense to form assurance funds; and it is much to be regretted that the same plan has not been adopted for the metropolis.

But we cannot help what has been done; let us, therefore, be reconciled with the past, and see what is best to be done in future for the interests of all. What is the present state of the matter? A certain number of districts, both in England and Scotland, are still exempt from the typhus; in others the disease is generally extending its ravages.

Those districts which hitherto have been spared, should institute assurance funds, and take every precaution to secure themselves against this scourge. In France, in Belgium, even in Great Britain, some places managed, in 1750, to successfully protect themselves by prohibiting the importation of any foreign cattle or animal. These preventive measures may now be taken with some chance of success in certain parts. Ireland, which, thanks to the published Orders in Council, seems to have escaped up to this time from the contagion, shows us the effectual results of these sanitary measures.

As for the districts already infected, it is of the highest importance to send no more tainted beasts to the different fairs and markets, otherwise the distemper will spread indefinitely: the unsold cattle, the sheep, the pigs, which are placed only a few yards apart, must necessarily convey the contagion everywhere. It would even be necessary at this time not to collect oxen and other animals together in the same markets; we urgently invite the attention of all public authorities to this most important question.

At all events, the farmers and graziers who, after all the cautions they have received, all the orders which have been published, and all the dangers which have been clearly exposed to them, should still persist in driving their cattle out of their abodes, would deserve censure, and ought to be heavily fined. The best they can do, since the contagion has not been prevented, is to submit their cattle to the treatment which we are now going to explain to them in detail.

It has been abundantly proved by the many convictions at the various police courts, that the flesh of cattle seriously diseased has been sold to the consumers, to the great injury of the public health; and if the cholera, which is steadily and surely advancing towards us, should mix its fatal germs with those of the ox-typhus, we must all expect deplorable consequences, in case the flesh of tainted oxen should continue to be sold by the butchers, as during the last three months it has been.

Every farmer or grazier who shall have fully ascertained that the ox typhus has insinuated itself into his farm or his stables, must instantly have recourse to the necessary measures and safeguards by means of which he may limit its pernicious influence, and prevent the spread of the contagion to his other cattle still sound and healthy. Let him immediately divide his stock of animals into three classes or lots--the first class must consist of healthy cattle, having had no direct contact with the infected beasts; the second class must contain those cattle which, though not yet sick, may become so, because they have been in contact with those tainted; the third class will be composed of cattle smitten with the typhus.

The sound and healthy cattle forming the first class must be removed from the farm, and driven to the field separately, by some other road, in different pastures, and only after the dispersion of the morning mists. Those which are accustomed to continue at the rack must be taken out twice a day, for the twofold object of taking wholesome exercise, and allowing their stalls and sheds to be cleaned.

Their feeding must be attended to and watched with very particular care; the rations of those which were being fattened up must be decreased, and they ought to be sold to the butcher for consumption as soon as possible. Let the following provisions be added to their daily sustenance:

Pounded oats 4 pounds. Pounded juniper berries 1 pound. Powdered gentian 1 ounce. Sulphate of iron 2 drachms. Carbonate of soda 2 "

The herdsman who tends the cattle whilst feeding in the fields must have them cleaned every day: he will carefully wash and scrub them; he will not allow them to drink out of the ponds, or at any stagnant and muddy watercourse.

Those belonging to the second class must receive the same strengthening and tonic ration in the morning; and, twice every day, one of the following anti-contagious preparations: either a solution of chlorate of potash or of permanganate of potash; two drachms of either of these salts dissolved in eight ounces of warm water, mixed afterwards with a gallon of an infusion of sage or hyssop, just at the time when the drink is given to them.

Or you may employ, for the same purpose, a solution of arseniate of soda--two grains dissolved in four ounces of water, and mixed with their drink in the same way. You need hardly be told that these doses must be reduced one half, when you have to treat a calf or a heifer, and that the same diminution will hold good, in their cases, for all other medicaments. The use of these anti-contagious drinks is of the highest importance; I recommend you earnestly to study their effects, and to continue them even after the distemper shall have broken out.

These drinks having no disagreeable taste, the cattle take to them in general; should the contrary be the case, give them in a bottle as all men who are cattle owners know how to do.

If the health of any of these animals among which the outbreak of the typhus is apprehended should seem below the standard, you must apply a purgative to those whose bowels do not operate well, and even have recourse to bleeding in exceptional cases.

During the absence of those cattle which are undergoing the preventive treatment, let the hygienic conditions of their stalls and sheds be looked to; for no circumstance must be overlooked or neglected if we hope to withstand the propagation of so formidable a malady. Be careful to take out the litter every day, to wash the floor and cleanse it of the droppings, to ventilate the place thoroughly, to fumigate it with burnt sulphur or aromatic plants, such as juniper berries, sage, rosemary, salted with nitrate of potash and arsenic acid; in order to promote the combustion and give effect to its disinfectious properties. At night, camphor or tar, or naphthaline, or creosote, or even iodine, may be left in the stable to diffuse their vapours; all these measures are very effectual in modifying the air.

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

The typhus, as we have said, when once it is developed in an ox or cow, usually pursues its fatal course until the last period of its cure; generally death alone can arrest its march. Besides, the disorders which this disease produces in the various functions of the body are not the same at the different stages of its duration. Thus, for instance, the fever produces great excitement in the beginning, but later it produces exhaustion. Without being a physician, a man can understand that the treatment to be applied to these different states ought not to be the same. We must, moreover, observe that the typhus is of all known distempers the most difficult to treat. It requires in the doctor a degree of skill, of practical experience, vigilance, decision, and sureness of hand which no man can be expected to possess at the first outbreak of the epizootia.

On the other hand, the constitution of the ox, so easily shaken, undergoes in two weeks all the commotion which a man labouring under typhoid fever would be subject to in a month. The phenomena succeed each other with terrific swiftness, leaving scarcely time for us to act, or for the medicines to operate. Do not, therefore, marvel at the great mortality among your cattle, and at my repeated recommendations of the preventive treatment by means of inoculation.

At the outbreak, you must reduce the violence of the fever, prevent the derangements in connexion with the nervous centres, assuage the thirst, empty the stomachs and intestines, which will be the principal seat of the complaint, and sometimes let blood.

But how are you to obtain these results? By abolishing the solid feeding, which is easily done, since the animal has lost his appetite. Give him to drink, three or four times a day, half a pailful of a decoction of good hay, adding thereto a sprinkling of salt; or a decoction of wall-wort, with a drachm of nitrate of potash; or water whitened with bran and flour, or whey, with a little vinegar. If the animal has a tendency to cold, if he coughs, if his breathing is oppressed, give him warm drinks, consisting of an infusion of mallow leaves and borage, or else a light decoction of barley and oats, and cover the animal's body warmly over.

Now, with respect to purgatives: give the animal, night and morning, according to the effect produced, 6 or 8 ounces of Epsom salts (sulphate of magnesia), or an equal dose of Glauber's salt (sulphate of soda), dissolved in two pints of honey-coloured water; or 12 ounces of linseed oil in some warm drink; or a decoction of senna leaves and prunes, with an ounce of sulphate of soda added thereto.

We might point out a larger number of purgatives, but we shall desist from so doing. Those which we have just prescribed, not being irritant to the intestines, are the best which can be employed.

If the animal is very restive, if he passes through alternate fits of dejection, stupor, and great excitement, you must have recourse to bleeding, particularly local bleeding, by opening the small veins of the head. If the excitement does not abate you must add, night and morning, to one of his drinks, 2 grains of extract of belladonna, or a half ounce of powdered belladonna leaves. If the fever, at first, is irregular, and tends to become malignant, you must then have recourse to sulphate of quinine, 20 grains in the morning, and the same quantity during the day.

When the disease is principally seated in the lungs, add to one of the pectoral drinks 4 ounces of oxymel of squills, and 2 grains of opium, giving also an emetic--5 grains of tartar-emetic to 4 pints of water--to be taken in four times, at intervals of two hours.

Whilst this medication is applied to the internal organs, let the animal have unusual care taken of him; let his head be washed several times a day with vinegar and water.

Such is the course of treatment to be adopted during the first three or four days. It must be, of course, followed methodically, watching and obeying the signs of nature. The purgatives must not be given on those days when the sick animal is bled, and the doses must vary with the effects they produce.

From the fourth to the seventh day the symptoms change, diarrhoea shows itself, and the running appears at the nose, mouth, and eyes; you must then continue the use of purgatives, but the dose must be weaker. Those mentioned above are suitable in every way. The drinks, too, continue the same. Sometimes, at this period of the disease, the animal is utterly cast down, nothing can draw him from his stupor: he lies down the whole day; in this case you give him acetate of ammonia, from 1 to 6 ounces, in a pint of water, gradually increasing from 1 to 2 ounces a day, according to the effect produced; and meanwhile, plain non-acidulated drinks should be administered.

At this stage of the disease it is right to assist the depurative work of nature. This is effected by inserting a seton in the neck, and the secretion of this issue is kept up by means of such an ointment as the basilicon with powdered cantharides. Finally, the mouth, nose, and eyes must be washed very often with an infusion of camomile and sage.

At the last period of the distemper, the beast sinks into a state of general exhaustion; his life seems all but extinguished through excess of weakness. You must now sustain and keep him up by every possible contrivance; give him bitter and stimulating drinks, beer diluted with water, adding thereto some powder of Peruvian bark, or sulphate of quinine. This is prepared by steeping in 8 pints of boiling water, Peruvian bark, gentian root, centaury leaves and flowers, and hops, 1 ounce of each; or else prepare a drink consisting of veterinary treacle, extract of juniper, 1 ounce of each, dissolved in 2 ounces of alcohol, and then mixed with 3 pints of water.

When the diarrhoea becomes fetid and bloody, give, night and morning, a clyster composed of a decoction of Peruvian bark, and a teaspoonful of powdered charcoal from the poplar, well sifted. If the running from the nostrils begins to stop, you must inject into the nasal orifices some spoonfuls of a sternutatory solution, thus composed--

Spanish pepper 1 ounce. Essence of turpentine 1 " Camphor 2 drachms. Vinegar 2 pints.

Should any sores form on the skin, or should they arise from the opening of purulent deposits, dress them with the following ointment--

Acetate of copper ½ a drachm. Calcined alum 20 grains. Sal ammoniac 20 " Camphor ½ a drachm. Common ointment ½ an ounce.

If the natural heat diminishes greatly, if the chill reaches the hams and skin, let the beast be rubbed all over, three times a day, with wool, moistened with the following liniment--

Laurel oil ½ an ounce. Green soap ½ " Volatile oil of lavender ½ a drachm. Solution of ammonia ½ "

Simultaneously with the above, give the following cordial, to be drunk in two draughts--

Cinnamon ½ an ounce. Extract of gentian 1 ounce. Red wine 2 pints.

Should the animal fall into a state of lethargy, you must have recourse to strokes of fire, according to surgical usage.

This distemper must extend to its extreme degree of gravity before it advances towards its cure; you need, therefore, not despair until the last moment. At this period of exhaustion, the drinks above-mentioned are given up, or you add nutritive beverages to them, such as beef-tea, fat soups, milk, and farinaceous drinks.

If the animal holds on, and his appetite returns, which will be shown by the desquamation of the nostrils, by the return of rumination, by the habit of the beast to look right and left, to question you in a manner, add cut straw to his nutritive drinks: send him out every day into the open air, and let him return by slow degrees to his habitual feeding. But it is extremely important to watch the intestinal functions; to diminish and change the food, if the diarrhoea returns; as such relapses often cause the death of an animal considered out of danger.

Such, then, farmers and graziers, is the treatment to be opposed to the ox typhus: it is simple as respects the remedies, and I have deemed that it ought to be so, in order that the medicines prescribed might be had everywhere, and at a cost which the poor man could command as well as the rich. The disease is variable, it is not always equally deadly; and there comes a moment when in some sort it cures itself, with a little assistance and watching. The great point is, to be careful and vigilant, to attend to nature and the instincts of the suffering cattle, and lend yourselves to both.

I cannot reproduce here the instructions given by the Privy Council to protect your cattle from contagion, and above all not to propagate it, but I shall refer you to Doctor Thudichum's Memorandum, page 257. This exposition is too complete to need anything added to it by me; study it well; let it be your monitor and guide; read it over again and again; your own interests and those of the whole country depend on the manner in which you shall treat this admirable warning.

There are in this disease, as in every other, unforeseen varieties and complications, such as those which are brought on by the gestation and abortion of cows, and those proceeding from prior disease; for these accidents you will provide. Moreover, such a terrible distemper can only be treated according to the advice of a professional man. Call him in, then, follow his advice and prescriptions with rigid exactness, and do not attempt to do better than he; and, above all, arm yourselves against the insidious pretensions of quacks and charlatans, whatever mantle they may put on to hide their ignorance.

FOURTH PART.

Suggestions on the Improvements to be effected in the Study of Medical Science, in order that we may be in a Condition to confront Diseases generally, but Epizootic and Epidemic Diseases in particular.

The epizootia of bovine typhus which is now extending its unrestricted ravages over this island, and which has assumed the magnitude of a general calamity, has naturally excited and stirred up the public mind. Thoughtful and earnest men could not look on and witness unmoved the ever progressive march of the scourge; but each observer has, consistently with his means and qualifications, striven to find a remedy to resist the evil. Thus, we have seen, and with respectful interest we have watched, the gentlemen of the press, and other men of letters, economists, scientific men, and, above all, physicians, producing from day to day in the newspapers articles and letters of remarkable merit on the all-engrossing subject of this epizootia. The re-opening of the medical colleges furnished the skilful professors at their head with a seasonable opportunity to consider this dire distemper, according to the views of general pathology and medical philosophy, and this they have done with unquestionable talent and ability. Still, something remains to be said on this important matter, and since I have taken up my pen, like others, I wish to mingle my voice with that of my brethren, and inquire whether the time is not come to avail ourselves more fully than we have done yet of the grand discoveries of the exact sciences, which, with respect to the science of medicine, are the instruments of its progress. And my object in doing so, is, that we may, as far as possible, rise to a level with the ordeal which the future may have in store for us.

Medicine is at once an art and a science. An art it has been at all times, and in every age of civilized man; but it became a science only when human knowledge had acquired a certain expansion; when natural phenomena had been tested and explained; when mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, general anatomy, general pathology, had enabled the inquiring physician to study with important results whatever belongs to his theme; to understand the serial chain and connexion of bodies with each other, in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and to investigate their immutable laws. Uric acid, as we see with the microscope, will always crystallize in rhombohedrons, according to a fixed law; the vegetable cell, the germination of a seed, must obey, and always submit to, the innate and indestructible forces inherent in them. That which is true in the vegetable is true in the animal world, as regards the pre-established order which regulates and controls the phenomena of life. These laws which govern the development of organic phenomena being immutable and everlasting, permit the different generations which succeed each other on our globe to build upon a durable basis, which certifies to the slow and laborious, but irresistible march of human progress.

Medical science being in truth only the application of other positive sciences to the preservation of health and the cure of diseases, continues like them to perfect itself incessantly; but all it can do is to follow them at a distance, and it can never hope to reach their degree of superiority.

These are truths which have been long admitted and felt by us. Therefore, we have appealed for assistance to the discoveries of the natural sciences: physics, chemistry, have in our hands become effectual means of observation and analysis; and we, in our age, gain more knowledge in fifty years than our forefathers did in several centuries, for they were then necessarily rather artists than scholars. In a word, medical science or biology is constituting itself, and if it be fully conscious of its impotence in the case of many diseases, it also knows its progressive improvement. It is striving to achieve the highest place among social institutions, and the day may come when it shall obtain it, for nations will then owe to us their health and life--that is to say, their earthly happiness.

The laws by which organic phenomena are regulated, are, we have said, everlasting; we may also declare that they are general. One of these laws common to the plant, to the shell, to every species of vertebrata, reappears in man, whose organization comprises all the functions divided among the other organic kingdoms. Not only does the organization of man obey the laws which govern the vital phenomena of other animals; not only does he possess their organs and functions, but he is a tributary subject to their diseases. So that the knowledge of the laws affecting the functions and diseases of those creatures which are placed below him in the scale of animals ought to be the first foundation of all medical study.

These truths are too manifest to be new; they are written and professed everywhere, and every one amongst us has received general notions of comparative anatomy and physiology at the beginning of his course of study. But let us admit that these notions only served to expand the circle of our knowledge and ideas, and that we seldom or never apply them to the practice of our art. It would have been very different had we received at the beginning of our medical novitiate, not merely in theory and books, but practically and experimentally, precise notions of anatomy, physiology, and, let me add, of the pathology of all animals. Let us suppose for a moment that the task had been imposed upon us before entering upon the study of human maladies, to observe the structure of plants and animals, to submit their tissues to microscopical examination and chemical analysis; to study experimentally all their functions and diseases, and acknowledge that had such been the case, the anatomy, physiology; and pathology of man would have been far better understood, and that most of the difficulties against which we now contend in vain in our helplessness, might easily have been overcome.

Comparative anatomy and physiology are the first conditions of all medical instruction of a serious character; there can be no doubt on the subject, but the evidence being not perhaps so palpable with respect to comparative pathology, it will not be useless, therefore, to enter into fuller particulars as to this subject.

We know not whether any one has ever sought to retrace the first origin of our diseases in the animal kingdom, but it would undoubtedly be a study of great scientific interest. As for us, we gladly believe that man, created to be the sovereign lord of the earth, did not originally receive the principle of every organic disease with which we see him affected. It seems to us probable that he was created sound in body and in mind, but unequal is his vital powers, and in his faculties and talents, the social functions being various and dissimilar, and subject to physical and moral infirmities. We think it likely that plants and animals, from which, in course of time, man's substance is formed, have transmitted the first causes, the germs of some organic diseases with which they were themselves affected. We see in this transmission of animal diseases to man, a connecting link, which appears to us to be a condition of harmony, order, peace, and happiness among all living beings. It seems to us that the first injunction of a legislator should be--love other animals like yourselves; for if man had practised this maxim, he would have logically applied the same to his fellow-creatures; and no doubt, with such principles to guide them, past generations would not have bequeathed to us the innumerable calamities we have had to deplore.

We think that we receive from animals some of their diseases, because the fact is palpably evident; thus they have parasitical diseases, such as favus, tænia, psora, trichinosis, which they transmit to us. They are likewise smitten with small-pox, typhoid fever, and with typhus; and under certain given conditions they may transmit them to us. They die of consumption and cancer, and it is probable that they transfuse into us through their milk and flesh the germs of these diseases. Finally, we have our epidemics as they have their epizootics; and here we will limit our instances of this reciprocation.

It is certain that the study of these maladies in animals would have been for us the source of precise knowledge, which, if well understood and explained, would have often led to their preventive treatment. This is what has occurred in the case of small-pox; it is what will one day occur in typhoid fever, in times of epidemic, as will be the case in a certain number of other general or local diseases.

In truth, some complaints now looked upon as inherent to the human species, were originally foreign to it; most parasitical diseases belong to this class. Thus man has not the psora, or itch--the disease does not properly belong to him; the parasite which engenders it is not bred in him, it is always transmitted to him by animals. It is the same with the tænia, or tape-worm, with the trichina, or fine hair-worm.

Medical science, instituted on the bases of comparative pathology, would have made the study of diseases in the brute creation, not the collateral, but the principal object of its inquiries. It would have applied itself to the cure of the lower animals; and whilst learning to cure them, it would have ensured the cure of men's diseases.

If such be the case, can any one believe that the treatment of diathetic and hereditary maladies would be, as they still are, insoluble problems; and that the physician would have the misery of seeing decimated, whilst he helplessly looks on, a large part of the population, condemned inevitably to die of consumption and cancer? Would every man smitten with hydrophobia be irrevocably condemned to death? Assuredly, it would not be so.

That the physician should have been reduced to the painful necessity of confessing his want of means, when medicine could be nothing more than an art, we admit; but now that science has grown up and come of age, society has a right to challenge him to do, what in past ages could not have been expected of him. Briefly, we think that the time is come, by blending comparative pathology with anatomy and physiology, to construct one of the bases of the tripod on which medical science will have to rest. The success which has already been achieved in this direction is a certain guarantee for those which we may hope for hereafter.

Such is our deep conviction, and perhaps we have some title to speak out decidedly on this point, as we have long since exemplified our precepts by actual proofs.

Persuaded for many years that comparative pathology afforded to industrious men a new mine, rich in precious veins for working, we several times endeavoured to explore this fertile field. But, unfortunately, our means of action not being consistent with our sanguine expectations, we were repeatedly compelled to suspend our pursuits, until at last we found at the Ecole Vétérinaire d'Alfort, the favourable opportunity and the essential conditions of which we had so long been in quest.

Grieved at our helplessness to stay the ravages of pulmonary consumption, I formed one day the resolution to study that wasteful complaint in animals in order to discover, or at least to look for, the required remedy. With that view, I confined in a dark, cold, and damp cellar a number of animals to practise on: birds of different species, rabbits, a monkey, a dog, &c. To these animals I dealt out a deficient quantity of food. The monkey, as might have been expected, was the first to be affected, since in our climates they all die of consumption. Next, and for the same reason, it was the parrot's turn; then the chickens and ducks died; after them the rabbits;--in fine, at the end of fourteen months, the dog alone survived. All the rest had sunk under consumption, and exhibited tubercles in different organs--in the lungs or mesentery.

It was then necessary to have the counter-proof: to place a second set of animals in the same conditions, to produce the disease again, and attempt its cure. But the first experiment had been a long one, and I was forced to relinquish the inquiry, which, moreover, was above my means at that period.

On another occasion, it seemed to me strange that we should be obliged to open the bladder of patients suffering from the stone, or to subject them to lithotrity, which has also its perils. Nature, I said to myself, forms calculi by uniting organic elements, by crystallizing them, and by cementing them with vesical mucus. But would it not be possible to cure the disease by employing contrary means--dissolving the calculi in the bladder by means of continued injections, changing the chemical agents according to the composition of the calculus, and adding thereto the action of a galvanic current?

After this, I pursued my inquiry in this direction. I studied for several months the chemical composition of calculi by examining them in their dissolved state; and I saw that those in which the alkaline bases prevailed, being submitted to a diluted solution of tartaric acid, which would not injure the bladder, crumbled after a time; that the calculi with excess of acid were also attacked by an alkaline solution; in fine, that the calculi of oxalate of lime alone seemed to resist the action of these chemical solutions. But it is well known that they sometimes defy all lithotrite instruments, and compel us to have recourse to the knife.

These preliminary experiments over, it was necessary to come to their application, and for that purpose to make experiments on some animals. The canine species, omnivorous like ourselves, was chosen in preference. Bitches were selected to be practised on; for as their urinary passages are wider and more flexible, it enabled me to insert in the bladder fragments of calculi already analysed, which were to serve as the nuclei to the stones they were intended to develop.

This second assortment of animals, penned up apart from each other, were supplied with different modes of sustenance: some of them were put upon a diet of meat only, others on a farinaceous diet, and a third set on a mixed course of food. These experiments were being regularly followed up, when an important and unforeseen event compelled me to desist at the end of six months. The poor animals were destroyed; but all of them, as I had anticipated, had generated calculi of various chemical composition.

These unfinished inquiries concerning comparative pathology, thus interrupted in spite of myself, might, had circumstances allowed them to reach the goal, have authorized us to undertake in man the dissolution of stone in the bladder. And how would this have been effected? By seizing the stone between the two ends of the catheter with the double current, and by injecting a well-sustained series of dissolvents into the patient, whilst lying at his ease in a recumbent posture.

Nor is this all. They would likewise, I believe, have thrown some light on the organic production of calculi, on the lithic diathesis, and the particular formation of the stone; and led us, in some degree, to their preventive treatment, which is always superior to the curative remedy.

On a subsequent occasion, I betook myself to my task under more favourable conditions. I undertook at Alfort, conjointly with Professor Delafond, a course of experiments on the cutaneous diseases of animals in relation to comparative pathology, having already, whilst walking the hospitals, published a work on the "Entomology and Pathology of Psora in Man," which had been printed at the expense of the Academy.

These inquiries and examinations at Alfort were persisted in for five years, and were considered to have led to very satisfactory results as regards general pathology. But I have spoken of these labours in the first part of my book.

Pardon me, reader, and do not suppose that vanity or any desire to parade myself has induced me to refer to these experiments. No; my only object is to show to what results similar studies might lead, if they were executed on a large scale and on the whole animal kingdom; if, instead of these partial efforts made under favour, some special and appropriate medical institution encouraged earnest experimentalists, supplying them without stint with all necessary resources, and with the best and completest instruments of observation.

Will any one deny, that if medical science had been settled on this foundation fifty years ago--that is to say, since the exact sciences first began to provide us with the means of investigation, it would now be so impotent? Epizootias and epidemics would not thus flout us as they do; the cholera would no longer be an enigma, nor the ox typhus so incurable. No! a hundred times no! Medical science would not he helpless and impotent in our day, had our forerunners been more mindful and provident.

But, instead of this, the science for which we plead would have done good work. It would have made and confirmed an infinite variety of observations on the brute creation; it would have transmitted our diseases to them as they transmit their diseases to us; it would have treated and cured these diseases, and every such cure would have been a new triumph, a new victory for mankind.

For instance, during an outbreak of cholera, this science would have been ready and prepared to try different experiments on men and animals; it would first have communicated the cholera to animals, and then submitted them to a variety of experimental treatments. This cholera, which is not an infectious fever, with its regular and assigned periods, like typhus, and which we are not obliged to suffer to run its course, but which, on the contrary, is a nervous affection produced by some poisonous miasma, the toxical effects of which first of all assail the nervous system and then more particularly the great sympathetic; the cramps being but the result of a reflective action--this cholera, we say, must be curable, and well-advised experiments would reveal the remedy we want for it, nor should we have to wait long for the revelation.

As for me, I once made a desperate attempt in this direction. It was during the cholera of 1854. We remarked whilst dissecting subjects, as is always the case, that the mucous membranes of the stomach and intestines, which were in a manner paralyzed, had suffered the fluid parts of the blood to ooze out on the surface. Hence the cause of those vomitings, and those watery and colourless diarrhoeas which nothing can stop, so that at a given moment the patients die, poisoned, of course, but dying more particularly through want of circulation, the blood being reduced to its solid parts and unable to circulate any longer. Relying on this fact, and trusting for want of better to the secondary effects, I strove to restore to the blood its aqueous part, and, if possible, to re-establish the circulation.

With this view, I went to the Hôpital de la Charité, provided with all the requisite instruments. Choleraic patients were being brought there every hour. The experiments being new, venturesome, and dangerous, in the eyes of the hospital directors, I was only suffered to operate on the moribund. The first patient, considered to be in a state sufficiently desperate to be given up to me, was a woman, forty-five years old. She was literally insensible, and thoroughly cold. I hesitated for a moment to try the operation under conditions so unreasonable, so preposterous--almost upon a corpse. The radial arteries in the arm had ceased to beat, and the heart alone kept up a feeble circulation at the central parts. At length I opened the vein, from which not a single drop of blood proceeded, and taking the usual measures to prevent the air from having access, I gradually and slowly injected two ounces of alkaline solution, the process of injection lasting twelve minutes. It was scarcely over before the patient half-opened her eyelids, and looked about her with astonishment; the pulse became perceptible for a few moments, and all present thought she was saved. We put a few questions to her; the patient could not answer us, but she nodded as much as to say "yes," when asked if she felt better. But this was all we could do in her case. The circulation stopped again, the patient relapsed into her state of insensibility and died two hours after the injection.

The result obtained in this instance had not answered our expectation. However, the circulation had for a minute or two resumed its course, and a flash of reason had once more shown itself.

I thought the experiment ought to be repeated, and accordingly the next morning I made another trial. The patient this time was a working shoemaker, thirty-eight years of age, exactly in the same far-gone, hopeless state as the patient of the day before. In his case, the inward commotion caused by the injection was more powerful; twenty minutes after the injection he was able to see, to understand, to speak, to raise his head; but this vital recovery was, as in the former case, but of short continuance, and two hours and a half after the operation the man expired.

After these experiments I dissected the two bodies, and then, finding that their lungs were infiltrated with water, I understood that the alkaline solution had not been assimilated, that it had stopped in its passage into the pulmonary parenchyma, to the detriment of the functions of the hæmatosis. I also understood that the proper injection, instead of distilled alkaline water, would have been the serum of the blood, drawn at the very moment from some man or animal.

The conclusion which I drew from these experiments was that a variety of operations, made at different stages of the malady, might lead to beneficial results, especially if we succeeded in transmitting the cholera to animals, as that would enable us to test a large number of curative agents and to pursue a methodical course of experimentalization.

From all I have said, I infer that life, health, and disease, being subject to the same laws throughout the whole animal kind, it is certain that the physician should possess precise knowledge as to the organization, the functions, and diseases of animals. That by proceeding in this manner, we shall advance from the simple to the complex, from the plant to the animal, and from the animal to man. That we must of necessity emerge from the state in which we are now entangled BY FOUNDING AND ESTABLISHING IN LONDON A COLLEGE OF THE NATURAL AND MEDICAL SCIENCES. Every medical pupil might spend two years in this college, receiving in it an experimental and practical training; he would devote himself in it to the chemical analysis of all bodies, to physiological experiments and tests, without limit and of every kind.

Most deeply do I appreciate the many difficulties and obstacles that would interfere with the execution of such a design. In our civilized age, nations seem rather bent on seeking out the means of exterminating each other than of protecting themselves and animals from epidemics and epizootias. It is believed that every first-rate kingdom now spends from 400 to 500 millions of francs (16 to 20,000,000l.) annually in maintaining their land and sea forces, whilst one-half of their populations are living in misery and ignorance, in disease and corruption. The time is not come--shall we ever see it?--to employ the vital powers of the peoples, to better incessantly their social condition. Perhaps, by reason of its organization, the Government of this country would not be authorized to devote 100,000l. or 200,000l. to the establishment of an institution like the medical college I suggest, notwithstanding its paramount necessity. But England is in the habit of doing great things independently of the Government. In default of the ruling powers, then, let me appeal to the national initiative, for if the spectacle which we are at present witnessing was not, in the case of England, one of those trials which invigorate a people by the salutary teachings which they bring; if it did not induce them to take some energetic resolution by which their interests would be saved and their power enlarged, it would indeed be a deplorable sign of the times and make us despair of its future.

Moreover, to show the urgency of founding a College of Natural and Medical Science, let us add, that in every other country they are endeavouring to unite this indispensable complement to medical education. The German universities, the Faculty of Paris, have, for several years past, incorporated a course of comparative pathology, with the other series of public lectures.

It is not a mere Utopia that we propose, but an extension and improvement, all the parts of which are already prepared. If this College could be thrown open to-morrow, competent professors would be ready at the call of duty to indite the programme for this instruction within twenty-four hours; and as for the professors themselves, there would be enough to choose among the large body of efficient scholars who do honour to the country.

If we have been rightly understood, we desire to see established in London an institution which would afford an equivalent to what exists in Paris, at the Museum and Collège de France, where numerous courses of lectures on anatomy, physiology, physics, and chemistry are given. Only in London this special college would be formed and organized on such a scale as to bear away the palm from every previous foundation of the same kind; it would be an institution unexampled in the world, out of whose halls would one day come anatomists, physiologists, and pathologists of the very highest order of excellence.--But organic matter would not be the sole object of this instruction, for the animal is something more than matter. Courses of medical history and philosophy, of really general pathology, would introduce the students to the grand phenomena of nature, to the great laws which govern the worlds and the globe; and descending from the heights of science to the observation of the infinitely minute, they would never forget the important part of the vital powers, and of that unknown power called at different times by the names of +pneuma+, archéc--mind and soul.

The Regent's Park would, we think, be the proper site for this college, as the contiguity of the Zoological Gardens would afford continual opportunities for investigating the diseases of animals.

Moreover, this college would not trench upon or interfere in any manner with those medical and veterinary establishments which at present exist; it would ally itself with, and complete them, nothing more. The instruction received at this "College of Natural and Medical Science" would be so useful and necessary, and so attractive withal, that the sons of the great families would come to it to finish their collegiate studies, to the great benefit of the country. Other young men, in considerable numbers, would flock to it from various parts of the world. The foundation of such an institution would be an epoch in the history of science, and would give England another claim to the esteem of nations.

I conclude, then, with a conviction that a nation which owes to Lord Bacon, the founder of experimental philosophy, his imperishable book on the restoration, the method and teaching of the sciences; to Harvey, the circulation; to Priestley, the constitution of chemistry; to Sydenham, the modern Hippocrates, his treatise on "Practical Medicine"; to Jenner, vaccination; and to Charles Bell, the discovery of the sensitive and motor nerves--is a people too great and too enlightened to retrograde; and that, if the epizootic of ox typhus did find them at first unready and disarmed, they will in the end convert this disaster into a new source of greatness and strength.

Such is the sincere hope which I cherish and the prayer I offer up for the happiness of a country which, for the future, has become my own.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

BREMEN, August 30.

The following report, drawn up by two German veterinary surgeons, of a recent visit to London to examine into the cattle murrain, has been furnished by the agent of the North German Lloyd's at Nordenhamm:--

"On Wednesday, the 9th instant, we, the undersigned, were requested to be at Nordenhamm, if possible, the following morning. Upon our arrival we were asked by the agent of the North German Lloyd's, who had consulted with several of the chief cattle exporters, to undertake a voyage to London at once in the steamer Schwan, in the interest of the cattle export from the Weser. The object of our mission was, first, to examine as closely as possible into the epidemic cattle disease raging in and around London for some time past; then carefully to observe the treatment of cattle upon the vessel during the voyage, upon arrival, and at the time of disembarkation; lastly, to use every means in our power to prevent obstacles being opposed to the continued export of cattle from these ports to England.

"Furnished by the agent of the North German Lloyd's with letters of introduction to cattle dealers in London, and with the necessary funds, we left Nordenhamm in the steamer Schwan, Captain Christensen, at 4 P.M., on the 10th instant. The vessel carried 347 head of large cattle, 2 calves, and 260 sheep. Favoured by very fine weather, we arrived in the Thames at 2 P.M., on the 12th. At the beginning of the voyage the animals were rather uneasy, trampled a good deal, and caused considerable motion in the ship; after a time, however, they became quiet. A sharp, penetrating smell was easily perceptible in the 'tween decks of the ship, which was quickly removed upon a light breeze springing up, by means of the excellent ventilation and numerous air-pipes and wind shafts. The animals were several times watered, and it was easy to see how greatly they were refreshed. The hay in the racks, on the other hand, was hardly touched.

"Upon arriving in the port we were introduced by the captain to the two veterinary surgeons stationed here to inspect the cattle, and witnessed the rapid disembarkation of the cargo, all of which were thoroughly healthy, not one being condemned. The cattle, when landed, were immediately brought to carts standing in readiness and transported to London, where they are cleansed and then driven into the adjacent fields.

"After doing all in our power to attain the object of our journey, we went back to the port to wait for the Schwan, having first thoroughly cleansed the clothes we had worn during our inspection of the diseased cattle. The Schwan came in shortly after our arrival, and disembarked 256 head of large cattle, 12 calves and 400 sheep, all in good condition. Mr. Philipps, the London agent of the North German Lloyd's, was on the spot, together with several reporters from newspapers, who wished to see by personal investigation how and in what condition cattle are brought from the Weser.

"We re-embarked on the Schwan upon the 19th. The crew were engaged during the voyage in carefully cleansing the ship. The weather was fine, and we arrived safely at Nordenhamm upon the 21st.

(Signed)

"G. J. RIPPEN, "Veterinary Surgeon at Seefield.

"H. FASTING, "Veterinary Surgeon at Schwey."

NOTE B.

Professor Simonds having had such opportunities of investigating those diseases as they existed in England and in foreign countries as were possessed only by a few Englishmen, might be permitted to offer a few observations. He had been appointed by the Royal Agricultural Societies of England and Ireland to proceed to the Continent in 1857, when there was a rumour that the disease which existed among cattle in this country at the present time was prevailing in Mecklenburg. Consuls sent despatches that the rinderpest was prevailing largely, and the Government, as a precautionary measure, closed the ports against the introduction of cattle from the Baltic to this country. He found, however, from his observations abroad that since 1817 there had been no disease of this kind westward of a line between Revel in the Baltic and the Gulf of Venice, but to the eastward of that line it had existed. He came up with the affection at the Carpathian mountains, where it was raging in 1857 just as it is raging in England at the present time. Not only had it existed there, but it had been carried into the interior of Russia in the ordinary method of the cattle trade. A person who was in the habit of purchasing cattle attended a fair and bought a number of animals, and took them to his own farm, and in the course of ten days one or two were seized with the disease, and the result was there was a gradual spread of the evil in that district. It gained ground until the Government instituted the sanitary police regulations, which, though they were such as would be considered strange in England, were, he believed, absolutely necessary for the extirpation of the plague. It was undoubtedly true that no foreign animals had been seized at our ports or in the metropolitan market; but it was not necessary for the case they had in hand to say whether the disease was or was not of foreign importation. There was this fact before them, that it was not until the month of June that the disease appeared in England. A certain number of animals came out of a diseased district. He had documentary evidence that animals came from Revel and came from the district of Esthonia. He had before him proof that the disease now in England was raging in that district. They had proof that shortly after the arrival of those cattle in England the disease manifested itself here. He admitted there were difficulties in the way of checking the importation of foreign cattle. The Government had its eyes open to the matter, and he did not think it possible for the Government to have done more than they had done or to have done more quickly what they had been doing. At this moment half the supply of the metropolitan market came from foreign countries, and he did not wish to convey any reflection by saying that this disease had its origin from abroad. He would admit that the animals from Germany and Hungary were coming in a healthy condition; but he could not admit that they came from Russia, Poland, or Galicia in so perfect a condition, because the regulations there were not sufficient to stamp out the disease. The Government had made an inquiry as to the general health of cattle on the Continent. They believed France, Belgium, Holland, Schleswig-Holstein, Oldenburg, and a large part of the Continent that supplied cattle to this country were free from disease. This went to show that we had admitted a disease not from where we received our supplies of meat, but from some other district. Then it must be associated with the fact that it came into this country when animals arrived here from an infected district in Russia. Animals from Germany and Hungary were often shipped and mixed with others from a diseased district. As regarded the disease being spontaneous, we had been free from it for twenty years. What was the state of our cowsheds fifty years ago? Were they not in a more filthy condition than they are now? If, therefore, the disease had been induced from common causes it would have been here years and years ago. It was no reflection to say that a great many cases could be traced directly to the metropolitan market. Take one case which occurred in Sussex. Certain cattle had been bought in the metropolitan market and were taken home. In three or four days they were ill, and presented symptoms of this affection. In a few days more the cows and calves were dead. In another instance calves were bought in Chichester Market, where they had been taken from London. The result was the death of twelve cows and ten calves. The people had other cattle on the same farm, and not one of them took it. He could say, too, that persons who had only one animal had lost it by the disease. How had the disease got into Norfolk and Kent but by the animals which went from the metropolitan market? He could prove by documentary evidence that it was so. He could show there was not a single instance where the origin of the disease could not be traced to the metropolis. It was the most fearful visitation that had ever been seen in England. They had adopted a system of compensation in Norfolk, and if by this meeting something was done to shut out the animals of infected districts, no doubt the promoters would receive not only the thanks of London, but the country generally.

Mr. Gibbins--Now, if the disease came from abroad, and diseased cattle were shipped on the other side of the sea, no doubt the voyage would concentrate and aggravate the disease. The Government inspectors reported, however, that not one instance had been seen of foreign cattle so diseased, nor had any been seized and destroyed in London or anywhere else. Whether the disease came from abroad or elsewhere he was not able to state. Sir George Grey asked him whether he had found any disease among the foreign cattle that came into the market. He said not one. They had, no doubt, many instances of the disease amongst the cows that were ordinarily called milch cows, but that were not milch cows when they came to market, because one effect of the disease was to deprive the animal of milk. These were then sent to the market and sold as fat stock. He could only say they had had no cases, except in cows, whether they came from the dairies in London or elsewhere.

NOTE C.

M. Dembinski, Professor of Analytical Chemistry and Natural Science, had also addressed a communication to the Lord Mayor on the subject. The prevalent Rinderpest, he said, originated in the steppes of Podolia, from which considerable herds of cattle were exported through the steppes to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riga, and Revel, and thence to the ports of Memel, Königsberg, Dantzic, Hamburg, Kiel, and the Hague. Deprived of congenial food and pure water on their transport through the steppes, and then arriving at marshy lands, the exhausted animals drank the stagnant water, which, during hot weather, exhaled a pestiferous malaria, and infected them with a predisposition to the epidemic in question, which developed itself into a kind of fever on the voyage to England in a crowded condition.

NOTE D.

INTERNATIONAL VETERINARY CONGRESS, VIENNA, August, 1865.

With regard to the cattle plague, it may be well to state that Austria has been most unfortunately situated, from the readiness with which Russian cattle have been admitted into the country at various parts of the western and southern frontiers. At the opening of the Congress this difficulty was particularly noted by the Ministerial counsellor, Dr. Vell, who attended on behalf of the Government, for the purpose of welcoming the assembly, and giving an assurance that its deliberations would meet with all the attention they deserved. He specially referred to the fact that the laws relating to cattle disease prevention had been entirely revised in 1850, but that the Steppe murrain continued to be introduced by smuggled stock into the western and southern provinces of the State. It was therefore necessary to attempt a more effectual control over the propagation of so disastrous a malady.

Herr Pabst welcomed the meeting on behalf of the Minister of Trade. He said that the value of the cattle of the Austrian dominions considerably exceeded one hundred million pounds sterling (one thousand million Austrian florins), and that cattle plagues completely put a stop to the development of that essential branch of agriculture which embraces the improvement and increase of live stock in a country. He assured the assembly that all would be done that was possible to improve the existing state of matters, and that he hoped they would greatly aid the Government by the discussions which would take place and the conclusions at which they would arrive.

I may state, by the way, that an opinion rather generally expressed by some, and stoutly maintained by others, was that the peculiar disposition of some of the Austrian subjects, and the feeling existing in Hungary against State measures, rendered the law, to a great extent, inoperative. I can, from personal experience, state that although stringent and most efficient means are used for the suppression of cattle plagues, and with the best results in Austria proper, there is great difficulty in carrying out the law in districts where Austrian rule is at a discount. Indeed this is clearly indicated by the manner in which the Rinderpest penetrates into Austria, where the laws are similar to those in the kingdom of Prussia, which is, and has long been, completely protected from invasions of the disorder.

At the meeting of the first International Congress, held in Hamburg in 1865, Dr. Röll stated that owing to the length of time to which the quarantine for Russian cattle extended on the Austrian frontier, herds of cattle were often smuggled through, and companies had been formed for the purpose of insurance against seizure by the authorities. The unlawful traffic was therefore carried on with comparative safety to the dealers, who cared not what misfortune they brought on a country if only their personal ends could be served. This question was the first to occupy the attention of the Congress last week; when a resolution was proposed to shorten the period of quarantine for cattle from Russia into any country from twenty-one days to ten. The discussion was keen. It was stipulated, however, that the quarantine should be carried out most strictly over all parts of the frontier, without respect to any breed of cattle or other circumstances which might be brought forward as exceptional reasons for retaining animals in quarantine. The committee appointed to prepare a succinct report on the subject included Professors Unterberger, Seifmann, Werner, Zlamal, Hertwig, Haubner, and Röll; and the committee decided in favour of the shortened quarantine, on the following conditions:--First--When the establishment of quarantine institutions is effected in accordance with the requirements of trade and the peculiarities of the frontier, special attention must be paid to the erection of quarantine stables, &c., where there are facilities for procuring an abundance of fodder and water. Second--The animals to be kept under efficient veterinary supervision wherever they have to submit to quarantine. The inspectors must be properly qualified veterinary surgeons. Third--The use of a brand to indicate that the animals have been in quarantine. Fourth--The effectual disinfection, by washing and otherwise, of animals as they leave the quarantine. Fifth--The introduction of a poll-tax along the eastern frontiers, and the appointment of proper veterinarians to be on the watch as to the health of cattle along the frontiers. Sixth--Careful supervision to be placed over the traffic in cattle wherever it takes place in a country. Seventh--The punishment to the full extent that the law allows of all who break the rules relating to quarantine or other means for the prevention of the cattle plague.

Professor Hertwig, of Berlin, whose opinion is always listened to with great respect in veterinary circles, stated his reasons for adopting these resolutions now, whereas in 1863 he was against shortening the period of quarantine. He referred chiefly to the importance of not offering temptations for cattle dealers to evade the law by insisting on unreasonable restrictions. The feeling of the assembly was greatly in favour of avoiding vexatious and expensive measures, which might greatly interfere with the employment of capital in cattle traffic. A small number of professors, not exceeding eight or nine, held out for a quarantine of twenty-one days.

It may be as well to state that quarantine regulations, which have been regarded as almost useless in the prevention of human disorders, from the great difficulties in the way of carrying them out efficiently, are recognised as of great value in controlling the propagation of cattle plagues. It is possible to control the movement of herds, and the governments of Central Europe have found it absolutely essential so to do. Indeed, the ablest medical men who have written against the adoption of a quarantine system for human small-pox and cholera, such as Professor Siegmund, of Berlin, acknowledge its value and absolute requirement with regard to the Rinderpest. A professor from Galicia argued in favour of controlling the movements of people wherever the disease appeared, and no fact seems to have been better ascertained than that of the communication of the Rinderpest from herd to herd by human beings. Professor Jessen, of Dorpat, states that in Russia the malady was at one time speedily propagated by the people, who regarded the destruction of their stock as a visitation of Providence, and who summoned a priest into their stables to pray with them that the plague might be stayed. Moving from farm to farm, the malady was by this means rapidly transmitted. In Hungary, many outbreaks result from people dressing the carcases and hawking about the meat, which, even where human beings remain uninjured, is deadly to the cattle whenever the water with which it is washed is thrown about the yards, or the meat is hung up near sheds containing living animals.

The members present at the International Congress spoke in favour of establishing a fund, apart from the Government grants, for the payment of diseased or infected animals which have to be slaughtered with a view to the prevention of the plague. Special precautions were suggested as to the transmission of articles the product of diseased animals.

1. Perfectly dried skins, the points of horns cut off, as they often are for commercial purposes, the salted and dried intestines of cattle, melted tallow, wools, cowhair, &.c., could be freely allowed to pass unobserved.

2. Entire horns, hoofs, &c., which are detached from the soft parts, but which often contain adhering flesh, &c., should be disinfected with chloride of lime.

3. As melted tallow is often conveyed in bags which may be charged with the poison, those bags should be washed with chloride of lime solution.

4. Fresh bones, fresh skins, and intestines, unmelted tallow, raw flesh, and fresh sheepskins, should not be sold whenever the Rinderpest exists in a district.

According to all the accounts which reach us, the foreign observations and resolutions may be of essential service in England. The members of the Assembly were informed by Mr. Erner of the origin and the progress of the cattle plague in England, and were deeply interested by the account given of the imminent danger in which many countries are placed that purchase breeding stock in the British isles. The theories of spontaneous origin amuse the learned here not a little, as they justly think we ought not to be so far behind every nation in the possession of knowledge regarding the propagation of such a disorder as the steppe murrain.

NOTE E.

Now, if the disease came from abroad, and diseased cattle were shipped on the other side of the sea, no doubt the voyage would concentrate and aggravate the disease. Whether the disease came from abroad or elsewhere he was not able to state. Sir George Grey asked him whether he had found any disease among the foreign cattle that came into the market. He had not one. He could only say they had had no cases, except in cows, whether they came from the dairies in London or elsewhere. So far as they knew, not one single bullock or ox had been condemned.--MR. GIBBINS, 18th August, Meeting at the Mansion House.

The very first shed in which the plague must have appeared in London is a pattern of cleanliness, and the stock was magnificent, as proved by the animals in a shed to which the disease has not been propagated. Almost simultaneously the malady broke out in the Essex marshes, and in every instance we trace a more or less direct contamination by foreign stock.

NOTE F.

VIENNA, August, 1865.

On the 28th of August about thirty of the members of the Congress accepted an invitation to visit the renowned agricultural establishment at Altenburg, in Hungary. After the visitors had inspected the herds and other appurtenances of this institution, Professor Maasch, its director, intimated that the Rinderpest had appeared at Nickolsdorf, about four German miles from Altenburg. The President of the Congress had known this fact before the party left Vienna for Hungary; but as he feared some enthusiasts would first see the plague, and then inspect the Altenburg herds, he preferred to adopt the stratagem of communicating the information through Professor Maasch, after the great Agricultural College of Hungary had been viewed. Nickolsdorf, where the steppe murrain appeared on the 10th of August, is an exquisitely clean village, with well-whitewashed buildings and broad roads, constituting the centre of a thriving agricultural district. Its people are typical Hungarians, not too anxious to work, and, on the whole, poor; but they are intelligent, notwithstanding the national proclivity to farm a thousand acres badly rather than one-fourth the quantity to perfection. Their wants are not great, and their worldly luxuries, beyond potatoes and schnaps, are bought with the profits made on large herds of cattle. One herd only had suffered from the cattle plague when we visited the village. This herd consisted of 1225 animals, divided into three lots. The affected portion numbered 450 animals--bullocks intended for work and slaughter--varying in age from three to seven years. The cows and heifers had not been smitten. The 450 animals amongst which the disease appeared were housed in no less than sixteen different sheds in Nickolsdorf. Out of each of these places sick animals had been taken, and either slaughtered or permitted to die. We killed four for dissection on the 29th. Six more had been previously killed, their hides slacked, and the entire body buried; nine had died, and two we left in life to be soon slaughtered and disposed of as the others. The district veterinary surgeon in constant attendance was an extremely active and intelligent man, who recognised the disease on its first outbreak, and adopted such measures for separation, destruction, and burial, as prevented the disease from spreading so rapidly as it has in England.

The cause of the outbreak was the intermingling of cattle-dealers' stock with the Nickolsdorf herd; and although the animals which carried it have not been fully traced, they are believed to have been owned by a butcher who had purchased them in Comorn, where the malady is raging. Singular variations have been seen in the symptoms exhibited, especially when animals are first affected. During the Nickolsdorf outbreak there has been an invariable incubation of five or six days; then furor or delirium appears: the bullocks stare, roar, stamp with their feet, are prepared to attack people who approach them, and seem to be dizzy at intervals. They shiver, their muscles twitch, the eyes soon begin to discharge, and the mucus which flows from the mouth foams. The pulse is at first slower than usual, until all the fever symptoms appear. There is more constipation than diarrhoea, though, on examination, the mucous membranes are all found to be affected precisely in the manner so often observed in England during the present outbreak. The differences in the symptoms are accounted for by peculiarities of breed, the condition of stalls, the food the animals have lived on, and similar circumstances. We may hear more of these Hungarian outbreaks, but the chances are we shall not witness in any part of Austria the wholesale devastation now going on in Great Britain.--International Veterinary Congress.

NOTE G.

At present the cowkeepers send off the infected beasts to the market, or to some slaughter-house, where they might be killed. There was believed to be great danger in allowing the infected cows to be driven through the streets. If the good could be separated from the bad animals, and if the latter could be conveyed to sanitoriums, where the medical men could operate upon them, then much benefit would result; and then, too, if the animals died, they would be buried on the spot. All the professors were agreed in this, that if a compensation fund were raised, and the cowkeeper were told that he would be remunerated for his loss, he would at once inform the authorities when the disease made its appearance in his cowshed. Shed after shed was being now shut up, and men and women who seemed to be affluent one day were the next reduced to ruin. An illustration of this would suffice. One day last week a cowkeeper at Pimlico had 70 or 80 healthy cows. On Wednesday three of them were found dead. On Thursday 42 of them were sent to the market. Of these 42 three showed symptoms of the disease, and then the whole of the 42 beasts had to be slaughtered because of the disease being among the three. The poor fellow was thus ruined. Last Monday he sent nine more cows to the market, and these also had to be slaughtered. At present the man was absolutely out of his mind. Out of his 70 beasts, he had not one left. Some persons were saying that the disease arose from bad water, bad ventilation, and bad cowsheds; but in the case of Miss Burdett Coutts, who had had 40 head of cattle, which were most carefully housed and attended to--particularly from the moment she heard that the disease was amongst them--all were gone, with the exception of one cow; so that, whether it was a want of water or a want of ventilation which in other cases caused it, this was an instance in which everything was done that could be done, and yet the plague raged and the mortality ensued.--MR. GIBBINS, Meeting at the Mansion House.

NOTE J.

Yesterday morning Dr. Jarvis, medical officer of St. Matthew's, Bethnal-green, received information that Mr. Castell, an extensive purveyor of milk, had lost eighty-four cows during the past week. Other cowkeepers in this district have also experienced great losses. The disease has manifested itself with more or less virulence at St. Anne's, Limehouse; St. John, Hackney: St. Mary-le-Bow, St. George's-in-the-East, St. John, Wapping; Christ Church, Spitalfields; St. Leonard's, Shoreditch; St. Mary, Whitechapel; St. Paul's, Shadwell; the hamlet of Ratcliff, Stoke Newington, Kingsland, and Tottenham.

Mr. Gibbins, chairman of the Metropolitan Markets Committee, Mr. Rudkin, a member of the committee, Mr. Tegg, veterinary surgeon to the market, and Mr. Baldry, clerk to the market, applied to the sitting magistrate at Clerkenwell Police Court yesterday for summonses against cowkeepers for sending diseased cows into the market. During the course of the present week no less than nineteen cows had been seized in the market and fairs and condemned. The order was asked for under the 8th section of the recent Order in Council, which recited that it shall not be lawful to send or bring to any fair or market, or to send or carry by any railway, or by any ship or vessel coastwise, or to place upon or to drive along any highway, or the sides thereof, any animal labouring under disease. The cattle seized had not been examined by a Government inspector, and no certificate had been given to the owners that they were fit to be removed. The market authorities wished it to be known that proceedings would be taken in every case that was brought under their notice. Mr. Cooke observed that the inspectors had power to seize and slaughter, or cause to be slaughtered, and to be buried in any convenient place, any animal labouring under the disease. Had that been done? Mr. Tegg said that the animals were in some of the cases slaughtered, and the others would be slaughtered in the course of the day. The summonses were granted.

Yesterday, the summonses issued at the instance of Mr. Frederick Thomas Stanley, a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and one of the inspectors appointed under the Order in Council, came on for hearing before Mr. Burcham, magistrate at the Southwark police court. The summons in the first case was addressed to Thomas Meredith, of the Flying Horse-yard, Blackman-street, for that the defendant, without the licence of the said inspector, did unlawfully remove from his premises some animals labouring under the cattle disease. Mr. Sleigh, instructed by Mr. Gant, appeared to support the summons; and Mr. W. Edwin for the defendant. Evidence was given that the defendant had been warned that the cows were diseased, but that he had removed them notwithstanding. The further hearing of the case was adjourned, as were also the other summonses of a like nature.

In pursuance of powers vested in him by the Manx Legislature, the governor of the Isle of Man has issued a proclamation prohibiting the importation of cattle into the island. Tinder the same Act his Excellency has power to subject all cattle imported into the island to a five days' quarantine.

NOTE K.

Tracing, as we have done, the sale of infected stock from abroad as far back as the 19th of June, we find that each week that the disease has been amongst us a fresh county has been contaminated; and more than that when we consider that Scotland has not escaped.

NOTE L.

SCOTLAND.--The cattle plague has travelled North to Aberdeenshire, and has killed a number of animals almost simultaneously on three farms at many miles distance from one another. The owners of stock in one of the districts, and the Royal Northern Agricultural Association, are taking, or resolving to take, sharp and prompt steps to stay the progress of the disease. The committee of the association having met on Friday, appointed a committee of inspection, arranged for a public meeting of persons interested, and favourably entertained the notion of forming a fund for mutual insurance against the sacrifices and losses which the extension of the disease might occasion. A meeting of the General Central Union was also held at Stirling on Friday, and a committee was appointed to confer on the subject with the directors of the Highland Society, and report to another meeting to be held next Friday.-- Scotsman.

The most important communication received to-day is from Scotland. The malady has undoubtedly broken out near Kelso, on fourteen head of cattle imported into London and sent north. Twenty-eight animals have been seized with the disease at Woolwich, and calves from the London market are said to have taken the malady down to Horsham and Grinstead.

Information has been received concerning the sale of at least fifty-four diseased and infected animals in the Metropolitan Cattle Market the 3rd instant.

NOTE M.

Mr. Charles Panter has, at the request of Earl Granville, drawn up a statement relative to the health of the cows on a farm hired by his lordship at Golder's-green, on the Finchley-road. In publishing the statement, Earl Granville says: "When I left England, a month ago, there were about 130 milch cows in four sheds. In the two largest and best managed I found only one cow yesterday (Sept. 4). His Royal Highness the Duke of Coburg informed me last week that what he believed to be the same disease visited Coburg last year. No one could trace its origin, and no medical treatment was successful. Air and water were their only remedies. Some men had died from eating the meat killed at a particular stage of the disease. His Royal Highness had seen a horse die in four hours, killed by flies which came from the carcase of a cow which had been allowed to remain above ground. The disease disappeared in the autumn as mysteriously as it had come. I understand that Professor Simonds is of opinion that the disease mentioned by the Duke of Coburg is not the same as that from which we are suffering here--that its name is the Siberian Pest." Mr. Panter's statement is dated Sept. 4, and is as follows:--"On the 13th of July I purchased five Dutch cows in the Metropolitan Market, and placed them in quarantine at Child's-hill Farm, one mile from here. On the 22nd of July one of them showed signs of debility; diarrhoea followed. Thinking it was only a cold, she was treated accordingly, but continued to get worse, and died in five days. Two more were attacked in a similar way, when veterinary advice was called in, but in five days the whole either died or were slaughtered. Every precaution was used to prevent the spread of infection here; the men who attended the sick cattle were not allowed to go among the healthy ones, and vice versâ. But, previous to this, bearing of the disease in the London cowsheds, I adopted precautionary measures, such as a liberal use daily of chloride of lime, administered one ounce of nitre in half a pint of water to each cow, and a small quantity of tar, and painted their noses with tar. But on the 8th of August, unfortunately, the disease showed itself here in a fat cow that had been for ten months in the best built, best drained and ventilated shed. No new stock had been added for nine weeks. In a few hours four more cows showed symptoms of it. I immediately had them all removed and slaughtered, and made a post-mortem examination of them, and found the windpipe in a state of decomposition, the lungs inflated, the small intestines red and inflamed, and the meat of a dark yellow colour outside, and dark red inside, which I think unfit for human food after the first stage. The disease confined itself to the above shed of forty-eight cows (which are now all gone) till the 20th of August, when it broke out in another shed of thirty-five cows, some ten yards from the former one, and continued its ravages, taking from two to four cows daily, till they are all gone but two, one of which has not been attacked; the other, which was a bad case, is cured, and partly come to her milk again. On the first symptoms I had her separated from the other stock, and did not treat her for two days, when diarrhoea set in; I then gave her a bottle of brandy and four ounces of ground ginger in three quarts of old ale. She lay in a kind of stupor for twelve hours, when I could see a change in her for the better. I continued to give her daily four quarts of gruel made with old ale and two ounces of ginger. In four days she was sufficiently recovered to eat a little hay, &c., and do without further treatment. In another case the above treatment failed, and the animal died in three days. In other cases I allowed anyone to treat them who thought they had a remedy, both professional men and others. One persevering young veterinary surgeon came up out of Somersetshire and treated two cases most energetically, but failed in both; one died in four, and the other in eight days. In other cases tonics, stimulants, blisters, and setons have been tried, but all failed. The whole of the eighty-one cows lost were of the English breed; we have not as yet had any loss out of the other two sheds, consisting of about half English and half Dutch cows, and standing about forty yards from the infected shed. It may be interesting for your lordship to know that I had the shed at Child's-hill Farm immediately cleansed with disinfectants, and washed with hot lime, &c., and bought twelve fresh cows and placed them there on the 16th, which are now in perfect health; and a neighbour situated midway between here and that farm had twenty-three cows lying in a field; the plague took twenty of them, and in three weeks he replaced them with new stock, which are still healthy, he having had them a month. Another neighbour, a mile distant, had a fine herd of seventy-two cows (English) lying in the fields a fortnight ago. The plague broke out among them, and now he has only eight left in health. From my own experience, and from all I can learn, I believe the disease is atmospheric, and of a typhoid character. The first symptom in a milking cow is an almost entire loss of milk, then loss of appetite, a watery discharge from the eyes, nostrils, and mouth, which thickens as the disease develops itself; rumination ceases, her ears hang down, her eyes are heavy and sunken, bloody matter is seen in the excrement, great debility is seen, diarrhoea sets in, and death takes place in from three to nine days. I have read of iron water being a preventive of the disease. All the water your cows have drunk comes six miles through rusty iron pipes."

NOTE N.

THE CATTLE MURRAIN AT HOLLY LODGE.--On the 27th of June an Alderney bull was purchased at Bushey, near Watford, and placed with the rest of the herd, then consisting of eleven cows, five sucking calves, three yearling heifers, and one bull. The bull had been imported from Alderney for several months. About a month after--namely, on the 29th of July--a cow in calf was attacked with unusual symptoms. She was separated from the rest; nourishing drinks were administered; but having calved, she died forty-eight hours after the first symptoms were observed. This led to the belief that she died of the disease which then began to prevail. This cow had been pastured with the others in a field occasionally used for grazing sheep that were taken to the Metropolitan Cattle-market, and, if not sold, brought back again until the next market day; the sheep were separated from the cows by iron hurdles. The Holly Lodge Estate is partly bounded on the east by the route taken by drovers with foreign and other cattle to and from the market, some of which are also occasionally brought back to neighbouring fields. The high road forms the western boundary within a few yards of the cattle-sheds and pastures. These facts are stated to show that the contagion might have been easily communicated to the animals. A few days later three calves were attacked with cold shivering and twitching of the muscles. The previous nights having become suddenly and unusually cold and wet, the symptoms were at first attributed to that cause. Although these calves had been pastured quite apart from the cow which first died, the cow had been driven across the field where the calves lay to the shed in which it died, the calves having been placed in the next shed, where two of them died on the 6th of August, unmistakeably of the cattle plague. The third calf was sent to the Royal Veterinary College, where it also died. By the 9th of August four cows and the bull were seized with the disease so virulently that it was thought necessary to kill them after three days' illness. On the 12th a cow and a heifer were also destroyed, and on the 14th one of the sucking calves died. Thus, out of a herd of nineteen animals, twelve had died within a fortnight. The malady had taken so strong and sudden a hold upon them that no systematic means of remedy could be applied except separation, warmth, stimulants, and the medicines ordinarily given in cases of cold and fever. On the 13th of August two more cows were pronounced incurable by two of the veterinary surgeons who had been called in; but it was determined, upon further advice, to try a mode of treatment upon them not hitherto adopted. One drachm of calomel was administered in gruel, four hours afterwards one pint of castor oil, and three hours later one quart of yeast. About two quarts of warm porter were added to a gruel of yeast and oatmeal, and given at intervals. These remedies acted most efficiently, and in one case gave much encouragement. The next day the cow began to eat hay, to chew her cud, and to yield a good quantity of milk. These remedies, together with bi-sulphate of soda, which invariably produced a return of the milk, and quinine, were then tried upon four other patients, with varied success. But in the end all these cows died, not, it is believed, of the cattle murrain, but of exhaustion occasioned by the activity of the drugs administered to them. This belief was strengthened by the healthy appearance presented by the viscera of the first cow thus experimented upon, on its being partially dissected after death. The remaining cow thus treated is still alive. It is impossible to avoid believing that had the medical man who kindly gave his attention to these animals, been better acquainted with the constitution of the creature, or had those who tended them had any knowledge of medicine, three of the cows treated in this manner might and probably would have recovered; and even when the animals succumbed the consequences were less serious, the virulence of the poison being expelled--at least it was undiscernible to those who dissected them. During the fortnight that the murrain was raging, one cow in calf and one calf remained perfectly healthy, apparently, until both were seized within a day of each other; these had always been kept separate from the sick animals, and tended by other men. The calf died, and the cow was destroyed, in consequence of the symptoms being so violent. In this case very little calomel was given. As it may be as well to mention all particulars, it may be stated here that the men who tended the animals were provided with a dress, and that it was found desirable that a certain quantity of stimulants--brandy, coffee, and strong soup--should be given to prevent nausea and other uncomfortable feelings from which the men suffered. All the directions respecting the burying of the animals issued by the Privy Council have been strictly complied with; clothes, &c., have been burnt, chloride of lime (Macdougall's disinfectant) was used with others to destroy insects and flies, with abundance of white-washing. The men were recommended to use, as a wash for the mouth, manganate of potash. The first crop of grass in the field where the cattle lay before their sickness, and during it, has been destroyed also; and it is intended to use some disinfectant, such as charcoal or lime, to spread over the field. Miss B. C. feels so persuaded that some mode of treatment could be found to alleviate, if not to save life, that she has determined to employ a medical gentleman, who kindly offers his services, and to take also the advice of a good cow or veterinary surgeon, and to try the effects of various remedies in some of the cowsheds where persons will be glad to let such experiments be tried; and it is also her intention to ask the Privy Council to allow one of the Government Inspectors to assist and report upon the cases. It may not be altogether unimportant to add that the state of the atmosphere seemed to have some effect upon the health of the animals, as upon those occasions the symptoms were most severe during the thunder-storms which then occurred. The milk which returned was found to be rather watery, and the cream had a peculiar appearance. At first the pigs declined it, and it was not thought advisable to continue to give it at all to any animals for about a week. It is now perfectly good.

NOTE O.

Advices from Holland, dated the Hague, Sept. 6, state: "The cattle disease has now been observed in the parishes of Kethel, Delfshaven, Moordrecht, Uaardingen, Averschie, Kvalingen, Nieuwerkerk on the Issel (two hours from Rotterdam), Spykenisse, Schiedam, Herrjansdam, Maasland, Sommelsdyk, and Zevenhuisen. It has spread most at Kethel, where it first broke out among a cargo of cattle not admitted into England. In the other parishes some sixty animals were infected on the 1st inst. The post-mortem examination of the diseased beasts presents the abnormal appearances that have been found in the disease elsewhere, i.e., swollen mucous membranes with red spots, peculiar exudations in the fourth stomach and intestines, &c. The medical commission declares the malady to be the typhus contagiosus bovum of modern veterinary surgery, and recommends that infected animals should be treated with from three to four drachms of muriatic acid, mixed with six ounces of treacle and decoction of linseed. Decoctions of Peruvian bark and osier peelings, with sulphuric ether, are also said to be beneficial to weak animals. The avoidance of all contact of the cattle-tenders with infected beasts is especially enjoined, and ventilation and cleanliness of the stalls strongly recommended. Cattle markets and fairs are suspended until further orders, and extraordinary measures for disinfection are applied upon steamboats and railways."

NOTE P.

The following document has been received at the Foreign Office from her Majesty's Agent and Consul-General at Bucharest:--

(Translation from the Official "Monitoral," No. 173, August 8-20, 1865.)

GENERAL DIRECTION OF THE SANITARY SERVICE.

From the 1st to the 15th July a typhus epizooty broke out among the large horned cattle in the districts of Ilfov, Jassy, Bolgrad, Falcin, Buzeo, and Roman, which still continues, but is on the decrease. The Direction, in consequence, publishes the above for the information of those concerned.

The Director-General,

(Signed) D. GLUCH.

Aug. 2-14, 1865.

NOTE R.

August 14.

THE QUESTION OF INFECTION.--Yesterday afternoon Mr. Alfred Ebsworth, of 11, Trinity-street, Southwark, the medical officer of health for the parish of St. Mary, Newington, attended before the sitting magistrate to make a statement with regard to the condition of the parish from the influx of diseased cattle, and the manner in which they were disposed of. Addressing the magistrate (Mr. Burnham) Mr. Ebsworth said that on that morning he, in his capacity of medical officer of health for the parish of St. Mary, Newington, received an order to attend professionally a man who was seriously ill in Kent-street, within the parish. While paying the visit to the patient his attention had been drawn to the condition of a slaughter-house on the other side of the street, where it was reported to him there were fifteen cows which had been ordered by the Government officer to be destroyed at the Bricklayers' Arms Station, and then to be buried. The animals were accordingly destroyed by the men in the employ of Mr. George Nicholls, the proprietor of the yard in question; and from Mr. Nicholls he had learned that, instead of the carcases of the animals being buried, they were carted through the parish of St. George's to Mitcham, where they were boiled down, and brought back through the parish of St. Mary, Newington, in the shape of cats'-meat. He (Mr. Ebsworth) felt it his duty to come before the magistrate with this complaint, especially when the cattle plague was so prevalent. He had a right to inquire upon what grounds the carcases had not been disposed of on the spot where they had been slaughtered, instead of being carted through the parish he represented, in a way calculated to spread the infection. He could not but regard this as a most iniquitous proceeding, and he attended with a view to prevent a repetition of the practice. Mr. Frederick T. Stanley presented himself, and said that he was a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. He had been appointed an inspector of cattle under the orders issued by the Privy Council. Within the district there were no means of burying the carcases of the diseased and condemned animals, and in the instance referred to they could not have been buried in the cowshed. It was impossible to bury the carcases in the London districts, and hence they were sent to the knacker's yard, where it was supposed they would be disposed of. Mr. Ebsworth: And that, your worship, is what I complain of. Mr. Burcham: You think that the practice to which you have called my attention is calculated to propagate the extension of the disease. Mr. Stanley declared that the skins were disinfected under his especial orders. Mr. Burcham remarked that the animals had been taken to the slaughter-house, not for the purpose of being killed and buried, but that their skins should be taken off and disinfected. Why should they have been taken to Mitcham? Mr. Stanley stated that the disease could not be communicated from a dead animal, and it was conveyed only by inoculation, or through the breath of a living animal upon the dead body of a diseased ox. Mr. Burcham: I do not agree with you in that opinion. I believe that infection may be conveyed by a dead animal. Mr. Ebsworth said that such was his opinion, and, having regard to 28,000 patients in the parish, he had felt it his bounden duty to come forward to make this complaint. He thought such things ought not to occur. Mr. Burcham was of the same opinion, and that such a commodity ought not to be allowed to be conveyed through the public streets in open carts. Just before the magistrate was about to rise, Mr. Stanley introduced to his worship Professor Simonds, and a long colloquy (in private) ensued between them. At its close Professor Simonds retired, and Mr. Burcham said: I wish to state that I wanted to be satisfied that everything was done by Mr. Stanley that could be done under the circumstances by which he was surrounded, in the midst of great difficulty. I have had an interview with Professor Simonds, and he informs me that there are the greatest difficulties, if not impossibilities, in finding any places near London in which the dead carcases of diseased animals can be buried. In the case now before me these animals were slaughtered at the Bricklayers' Arms Station, and were then taken to the slaughter-house in Kent-street, under the notion that the owner of the slaughter-house had the means of boiling them down. It appears that he had no such apparatus, and hence he found it necessary to send the carcases to Mitcham, the nearest place at which he believed the carcases could be buried and disposed of, and the neighbourhood thereby disinfected. Professor Simonds is perfectly sure that this meat when boiled down cannot by any probability cause the infection to spread. It was possible, but not probable, that infection might be introduced by the carcases of the diseased animals on their way to the place where they had to be boiled down; but it appears to me, from what I have just heard, that every precaution has been taken to prevent such an occurrence. It seems that the authorities cannot find a place within a reasonable distance in which the carcases can be buried, and, therefore, they are obliged to have recourse to boiling them down, as the only alternative. It is right that I should add that the conduct of Mr. Stanley, the inspector, has been quite in conformity with the directions he has received, not only under the Orders in Council, but also sanctioned in my presence to-day by Professor Simonds. I trust that this statement will remove from the mind of Mr. Stanley any unfavourable impression he may have entertained; and I will only add my opinion, that the diseased cattle ought to be removed through these populous districts in closed and not in open carts. The conversation then closed, and at an unusually late hour the court adjourned.

DISEASED MEAT.--At the Thames Police Court yesterday Henry Frost, an old man, was charged with having allowed to be deposited on the premises occupied by him in the rear of the house, No. 13, Sidney-street, Stepney, four quarters of beef prepared for sale and intended for the food of man, but which was unfit for human food. Frost carried on the business of a greengrocer. He asserted that he let the place to other men, who were the actual offenders. It was intimated that the vestry had no disposition to press for a heavy penalty. Mr. Paget fined the prisoner 40s. At Clerkenwell, Mr. Tegg, inspector at the Metropolitan Cattle Market for the City authorities applied to Mr. D'Eyncourt for an order to destroy a quantity of diseased meat which he purposed seizing. Mr. D'Eyncourt said the meat must be actually seized and condemned upon evidence before he could make the order. In the matter of the seizure of 32 quarters of beef, weighing about 3000 lbs., which was found on the premises of a knacker in Pleasant-grove, Belle-isle, Mr. D'Eyncourt dismissed an application made against the defendant under the Nuisances Removal Act. The defence set up was that the meat was recognised as bad and diseased by the killer as soon as the animals were slaughtered.

NOTE S.

The Orders in Council seemed only to complicate the matter, and how effectually to combat the evil was a most difficult question. Some said the grand remedy was the knife, and others suggested that the diseased animals should be sent to a sanatorium. To destroy the diseased cattle was impossible, except the owner of them or the inspector went round and obtained an order from a magistrate for their destruction. The last meeting was adjourned, among other purposes, in order that the committee might take the opinion of the law officers upon the subject. It so happened, however, that most of the law officers of the Corporation were at present out of town. Fortunately the Common Serjeant was found, and he gave an opinion which confirmed the committee in their view that they had no power to kill, and no power to do anything except in the matter of isolation. Then the committee passed a resolution that another committee ought to be formed to raise the necessary funds for compensating the cattle-owners, and to see that those funds were properly applied, for the money was only intended to apply to the cattle plague, and was not meant to go in the shape of compensation for pleuro-pneumonia, or for the foot diseases. In other words, they were now legislating for the cattle plague or Rinderpest only. He resided at Dulwich, and he found that in the villages adjoining there were many cows, and never in his life had he seen finer cows. Not one of them had been affected by the disease. There was a cowkeeper at Peckham who had 200 cows, and all of them were in the most healthy state. At Brixton Hill a man had 30 cows in the same excellent condition. At Dulwich nearly all the cows were diseased, but there the shed and other accommodation was exceedingly bad. In parts of Peckham Rye some of the cowkeepers had lost their cattle, but there again the places were badly ventilated, and the cows were badly cared for. He believed that the disease might be prevented by the use of proper precautions on the part of those who had the greatest interest in keeping their cows in a healthy state. He believed, too, that this question affected the whole of the metropolitan district quite as much as it did the City itself. There were no fewer than 106 head of diseased cattle lately seized; but, as he said before, they could not be killed without an order from a magistrate, and a magistrate would naturally feel a difficulty in issuing an order to kill so many as 106 head. It was necessary, under such circumstances, that a deputation should wait upon the Home Secretary and ask him to provide a remedy, and tell the authorities what they were to do at such a crisis. If, as it now appeared, the inspectors and the markets' committee had been slaughtering beasts without authority, who was to pay the costs should proceedings against them be commenced? Professor Simonds seemed to think that next session a bill of indemnity would be introduced, and certainly something of this kind was rendered necessary, for cattle were now coming here which were consigned to A., B., and C., and then the owners could not be found, and without the consent of the owners the diseased beasts could not be killed. The next subject in the report had reference to slaughter-houses. As there were no places at present to which cattle in an incipient stage of the disease could be removed from the sheds in which they were placed along with untainted cattle, it was now proposed that slaughter-houses should be established in London for their reception. Then came the question, how were the beasts to be removed from the sheds to the slaughter-houses? It was the opinion of many that they ought to be removed in vans, and not driven through the streets; but, however that might be, slaughter-houses should be erected in the metropolis where the tainted animals might be killed. Then came the question, how was an animal to be dealt with when first stricken with the disease? It was suggested that hospitals or sanatoriums should be provided, to which the beasts should be sent. But this was a matter of great importance, to which the attention of the committee to be appointed and that of the medical men would have to be directed. If the plague went on it would affect all classes, rich and poor alike, and instead of meat being as now at a reasonable rate, it would go up 4d. or 6d. per pound; but he had hopes that the disease might be checked, particularly as Professors Simonds and Gamgee had been more successful in the treatment of it than they had previously been.

NOTE T.

August 31.

DEPUTATION TO THE HOME OFFICE.--Yesterday afternoon the Lord Mayor proceeded from the Mansion House to the Home Office, and had an interview with Mr. Waddington on the subject of the cattle plague, and the desirability of establishing hospitals or sanatoriums within the metropolitan districts for the reception and medical treatment of diseased cattle. His lordship was accompanied on the occasion by the following deputation from the Markets and Cattle Plague Committees:--Mr. Gibbins (Chairman of the Markets Committee), Mr. Webber, Mr. Gower, Mr. Brewster, Mr. Rudkin, and Dr. Jarvis (the Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal-green). Sir George Grey having left London for Falloden.

The Lord Mayor introduced the deputation to Mr. Waddington, and in doing so, said that their object was to obtain the sanction of Government to the establishment of hospitals or sanatoriums within the metropolitan districts, to which diseased cattle could be conveyed from the cowsheds in order that they might there receive medical treatment, and be, if possible, restored to health. He observed that similar establishments had been formed at Edinburgh and other large towns, and that they had been found to work most satisfactorily, not only in separating the diseased cattle from those which were non-diseased, but in affording facilities to the medical profession to exercise their skill and knowledge under circumstances more favourable to a fair trial of both than they could expect to find in crowded cowsheds, many of which were in a filthy condition and badly ventilated. He pointed out the progress the plague had made, and was still making, in the metropolis, and how its effects upon the high price of meat and milk were affecting all classes of the community. The difficulties, he said, of adequately meeting the necessities of the case were at present very great, and some of these consisted in the alleged illegality of slaughtering diseased animals without an order from a magistrate, and also the illegality of removing those diseased from the cowsheds to the hospitals, supposing the latter to exist. But he hoped the Government, who had no doubt well considered a subject of such vast importance, would speedily do away with those difficulties, and render the fullest aid to the Markets' Committee and Metropolitan Cattle Plague Committee, who were unceasingly devoting their time and attention to mitigate, and, if possible, put an end to the evil. At present, however, the object of the deputation was limited to that of obtaining the sanction of the Government to the establishment of the hospitals or sanatoriums. This was an object which had not only received the general approval of the two committees mentioned, but also of the medical profession, and he might add, what it was by no means unimportant to bear in mind, that the cowkeepers themselves and the salesmen of the Cattle Market were also in favour of it.

Mr. Gibbins and the several members of the deputation corroborated what had fallen from the Lord Mayor, and strongly advocated the necessity of having the hospitals speedily established.

Mr. Rudkin called the attention of Mr. Waddington to the fact that the day before there were fourteen diseased cows seized at the slaughter-house of the Cattle Market, which had been sent there from the cowsheds of the metropolis. He argued that this in itself was a proof that the Order in Council, as at present carried out, was insufficient to prevent diseased cows from being sent from the cowsheds by their owners to be slaughtered for human food.

Mr. Waddington, who listened very attentively to the whole of the statements, said he would take an early opportunity of communicating with Sir George Grey upon the subject. In the first instance, however, he wished the deputation to forward to him their views in writing, and these also would be transmitted to the Home Secretary.

The deputation promised to comply with the suggestion, and thanked Mr. Waddington for the courtesy with which he had received and the patience with which he had listened to them.

YORKSHIRE.--The plague has extended to this district. The cases reported, however, are extremely few, and precautions are being taken which it is hoped may stop the further progress of the disease. On Tuesday a meeting of the Yorkshire Medical Veterinary Society was held at Leeds, and the question was discussed in all its bearings. It was stated that four cases had occurred in Leeds, and the disease has also appeared in the Skyrack division of the Riding. The general result of the discussion was, that members of the society were recommended, when diseased cattle were submitted, not to order them to be killed, but to place them in a sanatorium for medicinal treatment; the wholesale destruction of the animals being regarded as a blot upon the profession.

NOTE V.

Indeed, information has reached us of the disease existing in Dumfriesshire, but there is some doubt on this point. So long as we hear of infected, or probably infected, cattle being disseminated in large numbers from the great markets of the country, we must have the propagation of the malady. For the welfare of this country, it is deeply to be regretted that our Government cannot deal with this question as Continental authorities do. I regret to say some of our neighbours laugh at our expense. They see us helpless owing to the wretched state of our laws on the subject, and they are not a little amused at the theories of spontaneous development of the disease which some still advocate. The French Emperor has sent over Professor Bouley, who is still in this country, and who telegraphed on his first arrival, about ten days ago, that the ports of France should be instantly closed to British cattle. This has been done, and we may depend upon it the French people will not suffer as we now must.--GAMGEE, Lettre du 24 Août.

NOTE Y.

August 16.

MORE SEIZURES OF DISEASED MEAT.--Yesterday Mr. Paget, in the course of the proceedings at the Thames Police Court, was informed that there was a large quantity of meat in a van in the police-yard adjoining, which had been seized that day by Mr. J. Stevens, the sanitary inspector of Mile-end Old Town, and which was described as unfit for human food. The inspector stated, that in consequence of having been informed that there was a quantity of diseased meat at the shop of Mr. Frost, butcher, Sydney-street, Mile-end Old Town, he went there that morning, and found four quarters of beef (two fore and two hind quarters) which were from a diseased beast. He made a seizure of them, and heard that the animal had been sent by a person of the name of Stephens, a cowkeeper in business on Bow-common. The meat was in a very nasty state, and totally unfit for human food. (Mr. Paget went into the police-yard to examine the meat, which was in a very shocking state.) Dr. Freeman, Medical Officer of Health of the Hamlet of Mile-end Old Town, stated that his attention was called to the state of the meat by the sanitary inspector. He examined it, and gave his opinion that it should be destroyed, as it was not only in a diseased condition, but he believed that it had died from some disease. Mr. Paget: Can you state the nature of the disease which caused its death?--Witness: I cannot. Most likely it was the prevailing epidemic; and if it were eaten it would be very injurious. Mr. Paget, after hearing the evidence, ordered that the meat should be immediately destroyed, when the inspector took the van with its contents to a knacker's yard to see the order carried into effect.

NOTE Z.

NEFARIOUS ATTEMPT TO SPREAD THE PLAGUE.--Yesterday Mr. Gifford, Sanitary Inspector to the parish of Paddington, asked (at Marylebone Police Court) for the magistrate's advice under the following circumstances:--Applicant said that, in consequence of information received, he yesterday went to a cowshed situate on the Maryland Farm, Harrow-road. He found the door fastened. On looking through one of the chinks, he saw a cow which apparently was in the worst stage of the now prevailing disease, and his opinion was verified after he had burst open the door and examined the animal. He subsequently ascertained that the diseased cow had been brought some distance by a man who was at feud with the owner of the Maryland Farm, and surreptitiously placed amongst the healthy cattle. This was the first case where the disease had shown itself in the parish of Paddington. Mr. Yardley referred the applicant to the Order in Council, dated the 24th of July, 1865, under which he thought inspectors of nuisances had power to act summarily.

THE END.

LONDON: SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

+-----------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | | original document have been preserved. | | | | Greek words are transliterated and marked | | +like so+ | | | | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | | | | Page 62 Ge11e changed to Gellé | | Page 67 Bruneleschi changed to Brunelleschi | | Page 142 Röol changed to Röll | | Page 175 charboneux changed to charbonneux | | Page 253 eat changed to ate | | Page 354 lairs changed to fairs | | Page 377 Boulay changed to Bouley | +-----------------------------------------------+