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

"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 may 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 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 basilicum 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 cut 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."

Such are the recommendations which Layard has prescribed for those who have to practise inoculation as a preventive treatment; it would be difficult to offer an example of greater prudence or precision.

A certain number of oxen were, by means of this inoculation, protected against the attack of the cattle disease; and this mode of treatment was, as we shall afterwards explain, adopted in Russia. Unfortunately, this rational and preventive treatment was discovered only at the end of the epizootia, when already upwards of six millions of horned cattle had fallen a sacrifice to the contagious fever.

Curative Means.– When the first course of the disease had left no doubt of the attack, the sick animal was subjected to an appropriate diet, and restricted to liquids either as medicinal decoctions, or as alimentary beverages. The decoctions consisted of whey mixed with a little vinegar, and nitred hay. The broths, or alimentary beverages, consisted of a decoction of bread, and of water mixed with bran and meal, whether of barley, oats, or wheat.

At this stage of the curative process, the majority of physicians recommended one or two bleedings, in order to abate the violence of the fever, and of the congestions near the nervous centres and the lungs; and as constipation prevailed at the time, they strove with the same object to empty the digestive passages, the intestines, and the stomachs, notwithstanding the difficulty that exists to produce this result in ruminating animals.

The purgatives employed consisted of a decoction of senna, mixed with prune juice, with a little rhubarb or fresh linseed oil, infused in their drink, or applied as a clyster in warm water slightly salted. Those who practised polypharmacy administered at night a mixture of nitre, camphor, red-lead, and rhubarb, in half a pailful of warm water; and greatly did they boast of the active influence of this beverage.

Some practitioners even endeavoured, in the first stage of the malady, to accelerate its action on the skin by giving for that purpose warm drinks, and by covering the cattle with woollen cloths, to promote perspiration; but it was generally admitted that the sick animals preferred cold drinks, and that they were particularly fond of acidulated whey.

In the second period of the distemper, the same drinks were continued, adding thereto some theriac or Jesuit's bark, in order to lessen the frequency of the diarrhœtic evacuations. They also provoked the depurating secretions from the mouth, nose, and eyes, by repeated washings; and as those animals, in which the running was most easy and copious, seemed to be less seriously affected with the disease, they strove to increase that which flowed from the glands of the mouth by fixing a gag in the jaws, and keeping it there for several hours. This measure seemed so efficacious that a decree from the Parlement de Rouen, issued on the 13th of March, 1745, ordered the application of a gag, or bit, for three hours every day, to the cattle under treatment.

In the third period, they sought to overcome the wasting of strength in the system by means of tonic and nutritious drinks, decoctions of centaury, Jesuit's bark, juniper berries, &c. They likewise administered emollient clysters if the evacuations were bloody.

Moreover, they placed two or three setons, principally in the dewlap, in order to obey the signs and indications of nature —quo natura vergit, eo ducendum; as a salutary and critical eruption of the skin was at that period forcing its way. These setons were kept open with a mixture of turpentine and yolks of egg, for the purpose of encouraging the secretion. The purulent or emphysematous tumours were cut.

But whatever means might be employed, almost all the cattle perished, and the few and rare recoveries only afforded the pessimists the satisfaction of claiming the merit of them for themselves. It was remarked, besides, that the fattest beasts were the least able to resist the effects of the distemper.

It is hardly necessary to say, that during the whole course of the treatment, great care was taken to keep both the stables and the cattle in a perfect state of cleanliness.

The convalescence of those animals which were cured was invariably long, and required great attention as to their food and hygienic treatment. Solid substances, roots, and forage were withheld until rumination revived; and it was only after several days of encouraging trials that the recovered animal was suffered at last to feed all day in the field, according to his pleasure.

Such, then, was that formidable epizootia which, in the middle of the eighteenth century, swept away upwards of six millions of horned cattle, and which occasioned a loss to Europe exceeding fifty millions sterling – perhaps we might say a hundred millions – for other domestic animals, sheep, horses, &c. (as generally happens in cases of epizootia), had likewise suffered, in different degrees, from the various complaints arising from inclement seasons.

It was certainly necessary to our purpose that we should have taken this retrospective view of the cattle disease, and it will afford us a valuable guide for the future. We may now content ourselves with bringing together the different annals in the chain of time which elapsed between Layard's treatise, which was published in 1757, and the present day. This chain of time amounts to 108 years.

V

The typhus of Horned Cattle, which had shown itself in a manner permanent, sometimes raging at one part of the globe, sometimes at another, could not, under the unaltered conditions by which it had been generated, suspend its ravages; and though, thanks to her isolated position, England may be less exposed to it than other countries, it is, however, necessary to take note of what may serve for our instruction in the several epizootics which will pass under our view.

Medical writers relate that contagious typhus broke out several times in Holland during the years 1768, 1769, and 1770; it also appeared in French Flanders in 1771, in Hainault in 1773. In France one particular spot was, at this period, completely rendered intact by drawing a sanitary fence about its limits, and bestowing on the cattle particular hygienic attention as a safeguard. The stables of these animals were washed, cleansed, and fumigated; spring water was given them to drink, their food was chosen with care, and a certain quantity of salt was mixed with it.

In 1774, Holland, a cold and damp country, was once more invaded by the scourge; and the Government offered in vain a reward of 80,000 florins to any one who should discover the preventive or specific remedy for the disease.

The typhus which, at that epoch, had likewise broken out again in the south of France, threatened to become an abiding peril to the wealth of nations. Two French authors, Vicq d'Azyr and Paulet, betook themselves earnestly to the task of collecting every document which up to that time had been published on the successive visitations of the malady, and of offering the means of preventing it. Their intention was unquestionably laudable, but the time for obtaining such a result had not yet arrived; besides which, these two writers, whatever may have been their desert, were not equal to an achievement of this character. They belonged, indeed, to that order of men who look upon the cultivation of science solely as a step to personal distinction.

Vicq d'Azyr himself was but twenty-five years old when he issued, in 1775, his work, entitled, "Exposé des Moyens curatifs et preservatifs qui peuvent être employés contre les Maladies des Bêtes à Cornes." We should deceive ourselves if we expected to find in this exposition anything but an interesting compilation of the works already published.

Paulet's treatise appeared likewise in 1775, under the title, "Recherches historiques et physiques sur les Maladies epizootiques, avec les Moyens d'y rémédier dans tous les Cas, publiées par ordre du Roi." Paris. Two volumes.

After reading and reflecting on this title, as servile as it is arrogant, I might have dispensed with all examination of the work. A scientific man, whilst in the pursuit of truth, takes orders from nobody, not even from kings. Paulet, therefore, writing by order, could only produce a work of mediocrity, and such is incontestably the degree of value of his two volumes, forming, as they do, a fastidious dissertation of epizootics in general, and of those relating to cattle in particular.

The works of Paulet and Vicq d'Azyr, written at the same time, not being the labour of men practising the medical art, are on a level as to the notions which they have handed down to us; but that of Vicq d'Azyr being the better of the two, we shall extract therefrom what may chiefly interest us.

Vicq d'Azyr relates the history of the epizootics, and expatiates on the original cause of the typhus in horned cattle, and on its nature. The passages in which he treats of its mode of propagation and its treatment, are the most deserving of our notice.

He says, that he tried to no purpose to communicate the disease a second time to animals which had been fortunate enough to get cured.

That cows covered with the fresh skins stripped from dead cattle, victims to the distemper, did not contract it.

That infected clothes which had been worn by men who had served in hospitals where cattle were under treatment, having been laid on the backs of several beasts in sound health, were found to transmit the distemper in three cases out of six.

That the gases expelled from the intestines, received into a bladder ball, and let out under the noses of healthy cattle, have communicated the disease to them, after ten or fifteen days of latent incubation; and that the same gases being mixed with their drink, have also propagated the contagion.

That frictions, with the hands impregnated with virus, having been made over the skin, did not produce any ill effects.

That some oxen which had been designedly placed for a few hours among sick animals, have afterwards been seized with the distemper.

That a calf which had been placed in a stall containing some oxen grievously affected, but which calf had a basket beneath its nose filled with aromatic herbs, withstood the contagion.

That cowsheds which had been partially cleansed and fumigated, transmitted the disease to other cattle, even several months after they had been vacated.

Finally, he mentions the experiments of inoculation made by Lay and in England, but not understanding their aim and capacity, he adds, that inoculation does not seem to him of any use, since the inoculated animals all died. Yet he quotes the encouraging results obtained by Camper in Holland, who, out of 112 inoculated cattle, saved 41; and those of Koopman, who, out of 94, cured 45 by this very inoculation.

He reminds us that the cattle typhus is an abiding disease in Hungary and Russia, where the beasts having bad water to drink, can only be protected by a constant use of marine salt (sel gemme); but being deprived of this salt, when they go great distances to be sold, and being exposed to extreme fatigue and privations, the typhus then spreads among them. He likewise tells us that Hungary and Dalmatia, which used to supply the markets of Italy with butcher's meat, were obliged to give up sending any cattle there, the Italians having firmly refused to purchase the same at any price whatever.

As regards treatment, the advice which Vicq d'Azyr gives to agriculturists, is mostly borrowed from the authors who have written on the great epizootics of 1711, and 1745 to 1755. Thus, he advises them to give as drinks in the first stage, water whitened with meal and nitred; to purge the animals with linseed oil; even to make scarifications on the skin, and to keep up the suppuration with turpentine; to make the animals inhale six times a day vapours seasoned with vinegar; to wrap them over with woollen cloths; to bleed them once or twice; to administer to them, when diarrhœa shows itself, a beverage containing wormwood, quinine, and diascordium; to cut open the tumours containing pus or air, etc.

It is, as is seen, the same treatment as that quoted above; he guarantees its success, and supports his views by the authority of Van Swieten and Huxan.

Van Swieten, however, had somewhat modified the treatment, by the predominance which he allowed to acids; and this course seemed to him to be only reasonable with respect to animals whose sick humours contain an excess of alkali.

Vicq d'Azyr fixed his attention on the means of prevention, the most effectual of which, in his opinion, was to slaughter every animal which had either sickened, or had been exposed to the influence of the contagion; and as he insisted that the authorities had no measures to keep in this matter of public interest, he made it a principle that the government was bound to compensate the cattle proprietors whose animals had to be killed – the more so, said he, that the crafty husbandmen would never come forward and freely declare the invalidity of their cattle, unless some indemnity were held out to them, which they would look upon as a sort of equivalent for the benefits they had expected by cutting them up and selling them as the food of man.

The doctors of the period, scenting in Vicq d'Azyr a dangerous competitor, considered the advice of exterminating the diseased cattle as an ingenious means of curing them, and as the author's age and experience gave warrant for this satirical tone of discussion, the public joined them in laughing at him.

The epizootic typhus, if not so destructive, was at least as frequent in the early part of the nineteenth century, as it had been during the eighteenth. The armies during the wars of united Europe against the French Republic and Empire, found it constantly in their train. Nor could it be otherwise, the two leading causes of its prevalence being at hand. For on one hand there was the transit of large herds from the steppes of Hungary, and on the other the wretched hygienic conditions amidst which the cattle had to live in the campaigning armies.

Many books have been published of late years on the diseases of cattle, in France and Germany; and several distinguished English veterinary surgeons, especially Professor Simonds, have also devoted their attention to the same subject. In the second part of this work, we shall have occasion to refer to their labours.

In France, Renault, Delafond, d'Arboval, Gellé, whose works enjoy a deserved reputation, have discussed the subject of the origin of this disease.

Renault asserts that the disease has but one single focus, the steppes of Russia and Hungary. The epizootics of Asia, Africa, and South America are caused, he considers, by the importation of animals to those countries. It is thus that he explains the epizootia which, under the name of Delombodera, devastated the American Republics in 1832, and that which, in 1841, appeared in Egypt. Renault thinks that neither the long transit, nor the filthy state of the markets, nor the most wretched feeding, are sufficient to account for contagious typhus among cattle; that in addition to these causes, it still requires, in order to produce and generate it among animals, a predisposition, and a special aptitude, such as, hitherto at least, do not appear to have been witnessed except in the progeny of the steppes.

The other professors of his fraternity have submitted arguments to him, which to us seem very rational; and we will endeavour to do justice to them when we discuss the origin of the typhus which at this moment is afflicting England.

VI

These historical dissertations and speculations on the subject of the bovine epizootia certainly deserve to draw the attention of all who feel an interest in the malady; but how insignificant they are compared with the concluding facts which I have still to mention, before I at length address myself to the consideration of the epizootia which is now consuming our herds!

The indisputable fact that so terrible a distemper as this typhus had fixed itself permanently in Russia, and that it was causing incalculable losses to the lordly proprietors of the steppes, as well as to the government, roused them at last from their indifference. Then, indeed, they urged the veterinary doctors to adopt some energetic means to arrest the long duration of the scourge, and we must admit to their honour, that various experiments which were tried for the purpose of preventing the evil, have been crowned with complete success. Any one may ascertain the fact by referring to the Journal Magazin of Berlin, in which the learned Professor Jessen of Dorpat has explained the results of these important experiments.

The Russian veterinarians having observed that the oxen which had been cured of the typhus could mingle with impunity with the infected herds, conceived the idea of communicating the complaint to sound cattle by means of inoculation, and thereby to shield them from the contagion.

The first experiments in the inoculation of Tchouma or cattle typhus, were made in the year 1853, by order of the government, in the neighbourhood of Odessa, at the Heridin farm, by Professor Jessen.

The first inoculative attempts were very fatal; they caused the death of all the inoculated animals. But it was soon perceived that these grievous results, far from prejudicing the theory, really confirmed it; and that the virus, attenuated in its toxical properties, would prove as effectual as was expected. And truly, in 1854 and 1855, at the Dorpat establishment, the inoculations made with a better selected virus afforded results less disastrous. At Kozau they were still more satisfactory. In fine, passing from experiment to experiment, they arrived at the conclusion that it was necessary to inoculate several heads of cattle, the one after the other, without having recourse to any other virus than the first inoculated, so that they might thereby obtain virus of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and up to the 10th generation. The virus thus attenuated in its morbid effects answered at length every experiment, and oxen thus inoculated could mingle with impunity with diseased cattle.

At the veterinary establishment of Chalkoff they inoculated, during eight meetings, 1059 animals with virus of the 3rd generation, and the results were as satisfactory as could be wished for, only 60 animals having sunk under the effects of this preventive operation.

The inoculations made in 1857 and 1858 on an estate belonging to the Duchess Helena, at Karlowska, in the government of Pultawa, and conducted by the veterinarian Raussels, likewise afforded the most satisfactory results.

Professor Jessen thinks it certain, that beasts born of cows which have been afflicted with contagious typhus do not contract the disease. He maintains that Europe may be preserved from this frightful scourge, by taking care that no cattle be exported from the steppes of Russia save those which have had the distemper either naturally or by inoculation, and he is striving to propagate this opinion, and to render it practical, by having all the cattle inoculated, without exception.