Part 95

Another method is to employ the serum from the swellings in the inoculated tails and carry it on indefinitely from tail to tail.

Arloing in his turn employed the cultures in vitro of his pneumo-bacillus, but with the modern evidence that this is not the infective germ, such cultures can not always be implicitly relied on.

In place of the hypodermic syringe, Australians have used a simple thread soaked in the exudate and drawn through beneath the skin. Others have used a small lancet with a groove hollowed out in the middle of the flat surface of the blade on one side, and which carries in the required drop of the serum.

To preserve the exudate for some time against decomposition, it has been kept on ice, or mixed with chloral hydrate or phenic acid (½ its volume), and glycerine (½ its volume) for two or three months.

Injection into the veins practiced by Burdon-Sanderson has the advantage of producing no local lesion whatever and yet securing a fair measure of immunity. It is, however, a much more delicate operation as it entails a possible though remote possibility of producing capillary thrombi, and some danger of infection of the wound in the vein. To avoid this latter, the jugular vein is raised as for phlebotomy, and a short needle is passed into it. A longer and more delicate needle is now passed through this, and the injection of a few drops of the exudate is made through the latter. The small needle is then carefully withdrawn to be followed a few seconds later by the large.

Injection of the Sterilized Exudate Subcutem. In 1881 having found that liquids obtained from old sequestra, produced no local lesions when inoculated subcutem, but secured immunity for the subjects, I inoculated ten susceptible cattle with the fresh pulmonary exudate which had just been heated for 30 minutes to 180° F. No local inflammation nor exudate occurred in any of them, but subsequent inoculations with fresh unsterilized lung plague exudate were resisted in the same way. Six of these immunized cattle were subsequently placed in two infected stables and herds, (Mr. Butts, Brooklyn, N. Y., and Mr. Christopher Slade, White Hall, Baltimore Co., Md.) and retained there for three months without showing the slightest indication of disease. Later I applied the measure on a number of herds with thoroughly satisfactory results. About ten years later a similar resort was had by Arloing and Rossignol with corresponding success.

Two advantages come from this method: 1st, there is no local infection and no marked swelling so that the injection can be made on the side of the neck where the skin is thin, and clean, and the connective tissue abundant, and where there is less risk of extraneous infection than in the too often dirty or filth soaked tail; 2d, as no living germ is introduced there is no possibility of propagating the disease to other neighboring susceptible animals. Two per cent. of loss, of animals inoculated by the Willem’s method is counted on, but with the sterilized virus there is not even a remote probability of loss. Infection cannot occur from the animal injected with the sterilized virus, so that it can be safely applied among cattle that have not been exposed to infection, but which are likely to be in the future, and these injected cattle can be left to mingle with others that have not been injected without a shadow of danger to either.

Conditions permitting and forbidding Immunization. Immunization is permissible or commendable in all cases in which lung plague is already widely spread in a land destitute of fences and in which cattle roam at large, and herd mingles freely with herd. Here the extension of the disease is inevitable and continuous and effective measures for extinction are impossible. It is permissible where the plague is widely spread among cultivated and fenced farms, but where no authoritative measures are in force for its extinction. In such case, with the Willem’s system the inoculated herd should be kept thoroughly secluded in premises or well fenced pastures, apart from any highway, and not adjoining any other cattle pasture.

When on the other hand official measures are in force for the extinction of lung plague, every form of immunization based on the production of the pathogenic germ in the living body of the bovine, or even in vitro, is to be unqualifiedly condemned. The risk of the escape of the infection through subtle, unsuspected channels is too great to allow of its reproduction in any form. By restriction of cattle movement, slaughter and disinfection, extinction of lung plague is easy and certain, but, whatever may be true of an individual herd, no country has ever permanently extinguished lung plague infection, when the virus was systematically multiplied for uses in inoculation.

CATTLE PLAGUE.

Synonyms. Definition: infectious fever of polygastrics, with sudden onset, violent progress, high mortality, congestions of mucosæ, petechiæ, concretions on buccal and vulvar mucosæ and on skin, erosions of gastro-intestinal mucosæ, and pulmonary interlobular emphysema. Historic notes: ancient—China, Hindoostan, Steppes; in middle ages—Europe, Britain; recent—Europe, England (1714 and 1740), Scotland (1770), Central Europe (1796–1816), Southern Europe (1827), Germany (1830–1), Egypt (1841), Britain (1865), France (1870–1), S. Africa (1881), Abyssinia (1890), Japan (1892), The Phillipines (1898–9). Animals susceptible: ruminants, peccary, (swine?). Bacteriology: minute corpuscles in cell nucleus (Semmer, etc.), which are held back by Berkefeld and Chamberland filter. Accessory causes: such as favor preservation, multiplication and diffusion of germ. Susceptibility varies with previous exposure of the race. Immunity after one attack. All liquids and secretions of the sick are virulent; also manure, hay, straw, dust, stables, troughs, cars, boats, loading banks, yards, milk, flesh, fat, sausage cases, hairs, horn, hoofs, wool, bristles, hides, bones, halters, harness, shafts, poles, goads, boots, clothes, feet (animals), wheels, runners, vermin, wild animals. Virulence lost in drying. Manure preserves for weeks. Lost at zero, and at 131° F. Lesions: congestion, petechiæ, hæmorrhages and erosions on fourth stomach, small intestine, rectum, vagina and mouth, emaciation, sunken eyes, diarrhœa, wart-like epidermic elevations, concretions on mouth; conical papillæ dark, like port wine; petechiæ and extravasations in subderma and submucosa; swollen intestinal glands; spleen normal; liver, pale, soft; kidneys swollen, congested, petechiated, softened; lungs with spots of congestion and extravasation and emphysema: petechiæ on heart and pericardium: blood has excess of fibrine and leucocytes, black. Incubation 2 to 9 days. Symptoms; hyperthermia (104° to 108° F.), white epithelial concretions on gums, followed by abrasions, congestion of visible mucosæ, weariness, debility, thirst, constipation followed by diarrhœa, tender loins, drooping head and ears, weeping eyes, grinding teeth, rapid pulse, expiration with arrest and click, suppression of milk, relaxed sphincters. May become aggressive or soporific. Diagnosis: by rapid and deadly progress, and manifest infection; from malignant catarrh by the active spread, numbers attacked, concretions on mouth, and known exposure; from thrush by the high fever, contagion to old as well as young, and severe abdominal symptoms; from aphthous fever by the high temperature, the absence of distinct vesicles on mouth, teats and feet, by the comparative immunity of swine, and by its high mortality; from dysentery, by the early hyperthermia, the concretions in the mouth, by rapid general extension irrespective of filth and crowding, and by the implication of stomachs and small intestines, rather than the large; from gastro-enteritis, due to chemical irritants, by the lack of such manifest cause, and its rapid progress from herd to herd; from anthrax, by its rapid spread beyond an anthrax locality, the buccal and skin concretions and desquamations, by the insusceptibility of horse, dog, and rodent, by the absence of splenic enlargement or incoagulable blood. In sheep: mortality in Steppes, 30 to 50 per cent.; in new countries 90 to 95 per cent. Treatment: to be condemned where its permanence is not accepted. Serum-therapy: blood serum of immunized animal subcutem. Prevention by immunization: mixture of virus and bile; inject with highly immunized and defibrinated blood, and expose to the sick, only admissible where extinction is despaired of. Exclusion: exclude all ruminants and their products which come from suspected lands, or admit on certificate and quarantine, or for slaughter only. Extinctions: Trace and kill all ruminants that come in proximity to every infected animal, or to any place or thing where it has been, disinfect thoroughly the carcasses, products, places and things, register all ruminants around a wide area of possible infection, make necropsy in every case of death, appraise and sacrifice any herd showing the infection. Each seaboard state should provide for instant action by the Federal Government. Question of extinction in the Philippines.

Synonyms. Pestis Bovina, Rinderpest, Magenseuche, Viehpest, Viehseuche, Pockenseuche (German). Pest Bovine, Typhus Contagieuse, Typhus du gros Betail (French). Tifo Bovino (Italian). Dzuma (Polish). Tchouma Reina (Russian). Low peng (belly sickness, China). Pushima (Hind., Burma.).

Definition. A contagious fever of polygastric mammals (bovine, ovine, caprine, cervine, exceptionally porcine), characterized by sudden invasion, rapid advance, hyperthermia, great constitutional disorder, congestion and blood extravasations of the mucosæ generally, but especially of the gastric and intestinal, epithelial and epidermic hypertrophy in the form of white concretions or warty-like masses on the mouth, (vulva), and skin, followed by erosions, by pulmonary, interlobular emphysema, by a catching, arrested inspiration, followed by an expiratory moan, and by an early and very high mortality.

Historic Notes. As the most rapidly developing and deadly of the cattle plagues, this attracted the greatest attention of people in earlier times, and thus its invasions and ravages can be more satisfactorily identified, than those of the tardier and somewhat less deadly lung plague which usually followed in its wake.

Sanctus Severus and Vegetius Renatus indicate its advent into Western Asia on the borders of the Caspian and Black Seas, coincident with the irruption of the Mongols in the first Christian century. It still prevails in China and adjoining countries, including Hindoostan, and since that date the Steppes near the Black and Caspian Seas have been looked on as the perennial home of the plague. Before 376, A. D., the chronicles of epizoötics in Europe suggest anthrax affections which prevailed widely in man and beast, and since that time the special plagues of cattle come into prominence. At this date the Huns began a great onward movement from the region of the Caspian and Black seas into Dacia (Hungary), Northern Italy, Germany and Gaul, and this was the occasion for a general diffusion of Rinderpest over these countries.

After this date cattle plague spread widely on the occasion of any great European war in which the eastern nations were involved or which was so general or continued as to draw upon Eastern Europe for the supply of the commisariat parks. One great epizoötic culminated in 810 after the wars of Charlemagne; one occurred in 820 in connection with invasion of Hungary by the Franco-German army; one in 1223 to 1225 laid waste Central Europe and is said to have reached Great Britain; in 1233–4 it again gained a wide extension following the invasion by hosts of Mongols from Siberia; great extensions are recorded in Italy in 1616 and 1625 during the 30 years’ war; in 1709 Charles XII wintered with his army in the Ukraine and his return was followed by the most disastrous mortality ever seen in Europe and which lasted from 1710 to 1717. This reached England in 1714 and was there stamped out by killing and burning the sick, disinfecting the buildings and closing up the infected pastures. Paulet claims that Europe lost 1,500,000 head of cattle in the first three years of this invasion. It continued more or less prevalent in the eastern countries of Europe, and, following the course of war, entered Italy in 1735, and extended westward. Again in 1740 in connection with the war of the Austrian Succession it extended westward invading the Western Countries from France to Denmark inclusive, and once more extended into England, where it prevailed until 1756 and caused an unprecedented destruction. It was finally stamped out as on the previous invasion. During this invasion Europe lost 3,000,000 head of cattle (Delafond). In 1770 another invasion of Great Britain occurred through the landing of infected Dutch hay at Portsoy, N. B., but this was quickly suppressed by the destruction of every bovine animal in the infected herds, and the thorough disinfection of premises, supplemented by a daily scrutiny of all cattle within a radius of 18 miles. In the second half of the 18th century cattle plague prevailed more or less generally in all Continental Europe, except Norway, Sweden and the Spanish peninsula, into which no cattle were imported, and carried off 200,000,000 head of cattle (Freidberger and Fröhner). In 1796 to 1816 the cattle plague followed the marches and countermarches of the various armies in connection with the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars, causing unheard of losses throughout Europe. In 1827 it spread widely in connection with the war of independence in Greece, and again in 1830–1 a wide extension occurred in connection with the Polish revolution. In 1844 Russia lost 1,000,000 head of cattle. In 1841 a shipment of Roumanian and Anatolian cattle to Alexandria, Egypt, carried the plague and in two years upwards of 350,000 head of Egyptian cattle perished, only a few being left. From this date the great development of manufactures in the Western European nations, and especially in Great Britain, the consequent increasing demand for beef, and the inauguration of rapid transit from Eastern Europe by steamer and rail, introduced an era of the extension of the cattle plague by commerce rather than war, and Röll gives the losses in Austria alone in 1847 to 1864 at 500,000 head. In 1865 a cargo of cattle from Revel on the Baltic, landed the infection at Hull, whence it speedily extended over the entire country, and prevailed for 18 months, but was stamped out by vigorous measures of destruction and disinfection. In all 279,023 head were reported attacked of which 233,629 died or were killed and 40,165 recovered. In 1865 the plague was once more imported into Egypt, this time from the Danubian Principalities. A wide extension took place in the parks of the French and German armies in the war of 1870–1, as many as 43 departments in France having suffered. In 1872 it was imported from Russia into Great Britain but was speedily extirpated, and again in 1877 from Germany when it spread somewhat more widely but was easily suppressed. In 1881 it was introduced into S. Africa in Asiatic cattle during the war in the Transvaal and coming after the long continued prevalence of lung plague it threatened the cattle interests with ruin. In 1890 it reached Abyssinia by cattle sent for the supply of the Italian Army. In 1892 Japan suffered through importation from the main land. The latest extension of cattle plague was in 1898–9 into the Phillipines in the shipments of Asiatic cattle sent for the supply of the American army, and there as elsewhere in unfenced countries it is proving the cause of disastrous losses.

Animals Susceptible. In spite of its name—cattle plague, Rinderpest—this affection is not like lung plague peculiar to bovine animals. Yet bovine animals are by far the most susceptible, by them it is mainly propagated, and upon them comes the greatest mortality. Infection, however, extends to all other ruminants,—sheep, goats, deer, elk, antelopes, gazelles, aurochs, yaks, camels, dromedaries, buffaloes, etc. Swine which show a pouch on the left sac of the stomach show a certain susceptibility, it killed the peccaries in the Jardin des Plants, Paris, and Viseur in France and Pluning in Sumatra, claim to have seen cases in the domestic pig. The horse, dog, rabbit, bird, and man are immune.

Bacteriology. In a disease with such destructive changes in blood and tissues, bacteria are found, almost of necessity, in the seats of the lesions and even in the blood. No constant microörganism has, however, been isolated, cultivated in artificial cultures, and successfully inoculated on other and susceptible animals. Saweljeff isolated sporulating motile bacilli which break up into micrococci and streptococci, with the cultures of these on agar he produced what he believed to be cattle plague. Metchnikoff found a short bacillus with rounded ends, forming cocci and leptothrix-like threads, non-liquefying, and producing cattle plague in calves. Sacharow found a bacillus 0.25μ to 1.5μ long and Tokishige a very small short bacillus the cultures of which produced rinderpest in cattle. It would seem as if here as in the case of lung plague, the experimenters had retained the real but invisible pathogenic agent in what they took for pure cultures. Semmer attributes the disease to fine corpuscles which have so far eluded current methods of staining and cultivation, and that they exist in the number of from one to six in the enlarged cell nucleus. Nicolle and Adel Bey sustain this position, having found that the unseen virulent germ passed through the more open and thinner Berkefeld filter, but failed to traverse the denser Berkefeld and Chamberland porcelain filters even when favored by a somewhat higher temperature. As this filtration usually removes the germ and renders the liquid noninfecting they hold that the real germ is almost certainly intraleucocytic. When in exceptional cases a few pass through the filter it is held to be only such as were free in the liquid, and these are usually so small in number, that inoculation with the filtrate does not kill, nor always produce appreciable symptoms, but only immunity.

Accessory Causes. The essential cause being the germ, accessory causes are of necessity such as contribute to the preservation of that microbe and its introduction into the systems of susceptible animals.

Susceptibility has a powerful influence even in races habitually subject to rinderpest. The highest susceptibility inheres in cattle, and yet the surviving cattle of the Steppe race, which has been exposed to the infection for centuries, mostly recover from the plague, while fresh cattle imported into the Steppes perish almost without exception. Sheep and goats contract the disease but it is more severe and deadly in the latter than in the former animal. Both, however, can carry the infection back to the bovine animal, as can also the whole group of ruminants. The Guinea pig contracts the affection by inoculation and may thus become an indirect means of conveying infection from ox to ox.

Immunity follows a first attack. Calves born of cows that passed through cattle plague during the last months of gestation are usually immune.

Exposure to infection arises in various ways. All of the secretions of the diseased animal are apparently infecting, and the virus possesses great vitality, so that the channels of infection are almost endless. It is carried in the manure, washed on in streams, and drains, dried up on hay, straw, feathers and other light objects, or in dust, and blown about by the winds, left in stables, in feeding and watering troughs, in railroad cars, steamboats, ferry boats, loading banks and yards, it is carried in the fresh milk, flesh, fat, sausage cases, hairs, hoofs, horns, wool and bristles, in hides and bones, in halters and harness, on wagon shafts and poles, on goads, on boots and clothes of men, and the feet of dogs, birds and other animals, on the wheels of vehicles, the runners of sleighs, and by vermin and wild animals. The various infected products, however, soon lose their virulence after drying. Galtier assures us on the basis of the experiments of a Russian Commission, and the experience of France, Belgium, England and other countries that dried or salted hides can be introduced with perfect safety, and that rendered suet, and dried skins, horns, bones and hairs are equally harmless. On stalls, mangers and racks on the other hand, in an obscure and still atmosphere, virulence may be preserved for three months (Müller, Dieckerhoff). Again in litter and manure in the open air, and even in yards and pastures it may retain its vitality for weeks (Chauveau). The infection is destroyed by a temperature of zero, or 131° F. (Semmer).

Whatever determines a movement of animals from an infected locality, determines the extension of the plague, hence war, and commerce, the food demands of a large and encreasing manufacturing population, the inauguration of new routes of rapid transit by steam over land or sea all contribute in their various ways to the extension of rinderpest.

Lesions. The most significant feature of the morbid lesions is their concentration on the fourth stomach, small intestine, rectum, oral cavity and vagina. The respiratory apparatus, eyes, skin, muscles, and nervous system suffer to a lesser extent. If the case has gone on to a fatal result there is usually marked emaciation, the natural openings (mouth, nose, eyes, anus) are soiled with morbid discharges (muco-purulent, feculent) the thighs smeared with offensive liquid fæces, and the skin may be yellowish red, or dark, with a general scurfy condition and distinct eruptions, especially of rounded wart-like epidermic concretions on teats and udder. The eyes are deeply sunken, the conjunctiva of a yellowish red, and the lips and muzzle dry, swollen and it may be eroded.

The buccal mucosa is swollen, fœtid, with marked epithelial desquamation and more or less deep and extended erosions on the upper and lower lips, gums, dental pad of the upper jaw, cheeks, hard palate, and root of the tongue. There may still be some of the characteristic, white, epithelial concretions, or the epithelium may hang in loose semi-detached shreds, or there may be extensive areas of abrasion, in transverse cracks or broad patches, and finally extensive petechiæ. The conical papillæ on the cheeks and dorsum of the tongue are especially liable to dark red petechial discolorations.

The subderma and submucosa are also suffused with these congestions and petechiæ, and like the epidermic layer show a marked increase of all elements and of the cell nuclei.

The congestions, petechiæ, desquamations, erosions, are found on the fauces, pharynx, gullet, nasal mucosa, trachea, and bronchia, to a greater or less extent in different cases. There may be even limited areas of superficial necrosis and even the formation of false membranes. In the diseased epidermis and epithelium, in the necrotic plaques and false membranes there are spores and mycelia of fungi and bacterial growths.

In the rumen, reticulum and manifolds, the mucosa and submucosa usually show limited areas of thickening and punctiform or arborescent congestion with softening and even detachment of the epithelium.