On the cattle plague: or, Contagious typhus in horned cattle. Its history, origin, description, and treatment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note E

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

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

Note FVienna, August, 1865.

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

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

Note G

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

Note J

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

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

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

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

Note K

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

Note L

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

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

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

Note M

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

Note N

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