On the Cattle Plague

Chapter IV 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.

I

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.R

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.S

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.T 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.U

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 diarrhœa 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 diarrhœa, 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 diarrhœa 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 diarrhœa 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.

I.

—Principles of Disinfection.

1. Definition 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. May include special purification and deodorization.

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. Reproducers and primary carriers of infection.

Infectious parts of dead animals.

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. Particular danger of droppings, or fæces.

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. Enumeration of infected things and places.

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.

II.

—Practice of Disinfection.

A. Disinfection by earth. 1. Burying of animals, &c.

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. Burying of dung.

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. Infected manure and compost heaps.

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. Removal of boil infected by soakage.

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.

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. General remarks.

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 disinfection of stables, sheds, &c., trucks, and ships, &c.

1. Special directions.

D. Special Directions for the Disinfection of Stables, Sheds, Vans, Railway Trucks, and Cattle Ships,V 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

Washing.

Scrubbing.

All washing water to be disinfected.

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. Actual disinfection.

Solution of chloride of lime.

How applied.

How long to be left on.

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. To be washed off after disinfection.

Flushing.

Precautions as to direction of clean water.

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 not to carry back dirt by brooms, boots, &c.

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. Disinfection of workmen and tools.

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.

Tools.

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.

Workmen.

Disinfection of boots.

Disinfection of workpeople’s bodies, hands, &c.

Changing and disinfecting clothes.

Burning of articles of little value.

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. Stock may carry infection in two modes.

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. Mode and means of disinfecting live stock.

Warming and refreshing drink.

Penned in the quarantine shed.

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. Objects.

Both quarantine and surface disinfection are required.

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. Management of the quarantine shed.

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.

Cleanliness.

Persons attending healthy stock not to attend quarantine shed, and vice versâ.

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. Description.

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. Persons who should use the safety dress.

To disinfect before leaving suspected or infected premises.

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. Strangers not to enter sheds except in disinfected safety dresses.

Proprietors of cattle to keep safety dresses.

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 where plague has appeared.

Killing and burying diseased animals.

Disinfecting the living and the stables.

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. Hospital shed.

Situation of.

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. Preventing of diffusion of fæces.

3. To prevent the scattering of fæces by infected animals (and also by suspected animals and all animals suffering from diarrhœa), 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 diarrhœa 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. Special management of hospital shed.

Persons to be employed.

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. Disinfection of parts of dead or killed animals.

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, &c., to be buried.

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.

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. Of roads, &c.

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.

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.

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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, diarrhœa 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

R 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?

S 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.

T “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.

U 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.

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