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

The owner of the cow was then convinced and brought to reason, but he still very fairly asserted the goodness of his motives, about which none present doubted at all, and applied for compensation to the full value of the beast, both as butcher's meat and offal, which application was granted.

Judge, therefore, by this particular example, how many tainted cattle there must have been which have propagated this distemper, some with and some without the knowledge of their owners; and, "horresco referens!" how much of this tainted meat must have been purchased and eaten by the public, since this cow had all the appearance of health and vigour, and the real diseased condition might not have been detected at all, but for the experience and sagacity of Mr. Tegg, the inspector.

VI

In this consideration of the causes of the contagious typhus in bovine cattle, we have deemed it essential to invite attention both to those which are generally recognised and admitted, and to those which, though they may have been settled in the minds of observant and experienced men, may yet appear hypothetical to certain readers.

Besides which, in every scientific work, allowance must be made for the past and future; and here we have two vital distinctions. If the man who undertakes this task does not go on, he falls back; and it was to avoid incurring this reproach that we have passed our old boundaries and visited new avenues. We are aware that more than one objection might be urged against the opinions and theories which we have exposed, in order to account for the outbreak of typhus in England; we might anticipate, we might reply to these objections; but we would rather recapitulate our inquiry into the causes, in the tangible form of practical propositions.

From the general considerations above given, we think we may conclude,

1st. That the causes which generate the cattle typhus on our globe are permanent and unceasing, not only on the banks of the great rivers which empty themselves into the Black Sea, but also in other countries – in America, in Africa, &c.; wherever, in a word, exist the conditions, not of race (the race of the animal in this case being but secondary), but of climate and of the organic elements which are indispensable to the formation and development of typhic miasma.

2nd. That the cattle typhus, although it exists not necessarily, but through the improvidence or want of caution in man, on different parts of the earth, never appears at all in the temperate and more genial zones, save under particular and special circumstances, analogous in some degree with those which generate the human typhus – inclemency of the seasons, overcrowded dwellings, bad or insufficient food, and want of cleanliness; and that these particular and special circumstances give birth to the epizootic genus, rendering the cattle fit and apt to receive the germs of the contagious virus, and to foster its incubation.

3rd. That the cattle typhus, thus accidentally developed in the temperate and genial zones, by means of the vicious hygienic conditions amidst which horned cattle are accustomed to live, and which serve as the causes of its propagation, is afterwards transmitted by the contact of animals living in the same stall or shed, or collected in herds on the same ground, or transported in the same vehicles, by land or sea.

4th. That the droppings of animals, their litter, their dead bodies, and their detritus, or broken-up remains – also the stables, vehicles, and implements which have served for their use, and all matters or substances which have touched them or approached them – are generative elements of the distemper.

5th. That the typhic miasma, thus reproduced and multiplied in one place under the influence of all these producing causes, is conveyed by the winds to great distances, smiting those well guarded cattle which appeared to be fully protected from the possibility of infection by their isolation.

6th. That the want of prompt and stringent measures first to concentrate, and then to stifle this typhus in its focus; the love of lucre, the perfidy of some, and the absence of foresight and caution in others, may be, and have been in the particular cases which we are dealing with, material causes and agencies of its diffusion.

Such we consider to be the causes which engender and propagate cattle typhus, and which will serve as a basis for the preventive measures to be employed in order to withstand and check its propagation.

CHAPTER III

Description of the Contagious Typhus of the Ox; its Symptoms, Course, Progress, &c

I have already written the history of the typhus which affects the ox; I have shown and dwelt upon the signs and characters of typhus diseases generally, deducing therefrom the denomination and definition of that of the ox in particular; finally, I have described the causes which generate and diffuse it abroad.

Now, I must make known the various phases and alterations to which the disease is liable, and which, in the language of the medical schools, are called its symptoms and characteristics; its progress or course; its prognosis; its post-mortem appearances, &c. &c.

This examination, like those which have preceded it, will afford new foundations for medical practice.

I

Symptomatic Characteristics.– The typhus of the ox, like all infectious and contagious diseases, offers to observation four successive changes: 1st, a period of Incubation, during which the original structure is subject to internal and latent derangements; 2nd, a period of Initiation, during which the first evident signs of the disease are manifested; 3rd, a period of Endurance, during which the phenomena are fully developed; 4th, a period of Decline, or wasting atony.

These divisions and classifications, it will readily be conceived, are rather fanciful, for nature does not adapt herself to our methodical forms. Still we shall abide by them, because they have their relative and practical utility, and because they will afford to the practitioner suggestions more easily understood; and finally, because the organic changes are different at these various periods, which in their entirety constitute the typhus of the bovine species.

The description of those different phases through which the organism of cattle smitten with the contagion has to pass, has moreover been given in a masterly manner by the veterinary physicians of the different European countries, especially by those in which opportunities to observe it have been most frequent – that is to say, by the Russian, German, and French veterinary doctors, Jessen, Röll, D'Arboval, Gellé.

The English physicians of the 18th century, as we have already seen, were also in no respect inferior to those of our own time. Finally, Mr. Simonds, who published a very able Report on his return from his scientific exploration in Galicia, in 1857, and the skilful Professor Bouley, in his recent communications to the Académie de Médecine, in Paris, respecting his examination of the present cattle typhus in England, have described the disease with minute exactness, as we ourselves have verified on the various sick beasts which we have seen during the last two months.

1. Period of Incubation.– Several careful experiments, which have been cited in the historical division of this work, and numerous fortuitous occasions, have authorized us to assign a duration of nine or twelve days to the period of incubation, according to the general conditions of the epizootia, the manner in which the contagion is transmitted, and the former state of health of the affected cattle.

Thus an epizootia at the outset, either when it has become general, or when it is at its decline, does not always transmit typhic miasma of the same virulent intensity, nor does it always provoke in the frame a labour of incubation which is invariable. The contagion transmitted from animal to animal living continually in the same stalls or sheds is followed by an incubation more quick and active than that which results from a chance contact in the markets, or from a contagion produced at a distance, by the transmission of the miasmatic effluvium along the public highways.

Let us add to these considerations the relative state of each animal's health, and we shall then perfectly understand that the incubation must vary both in its continuance and in the characteristics of its manifestation. In some animals it scarcely betrays the derangements produced by its morbid operation: they preserve their appetite and their usual looks. A close and attentive observation would alone be able to distinguish some slight alterations in their way of living, in the regularity of their rumination and sleep. But in others, there is no mistaking a something irregular and unusual in their appearance and living; the vital state is no longer the same. Thus an animal which used to be cheerful and familiar becomes silent and solitary; it browses the grass with less eagerness and avidity; it lies down more frequently and longer; it lingers by the side of the hedge along the field, or it wanders about, here and there, with a listless look, and without any object. Others moan and complain, bellowing at intervals in an unusual manner, very expressive of languor and pain.

But apart from seasons of epizootia, the beasts too often exhibit these imperceptible shades of variety in their looks and actions for the attention to be struck by them; these changes, therefore, are almost always unnoticed.

However, the typhic miasma absorbed at the same time by the respiratory and digestive mucous membranes serves to modify the qualities of the blood, and secretly reacts on the nervous system; soon after, the animal exhibits more decidedly those changes which previously were hardly to be detected; his want of appetite is more marked, his sadness more obvious, and his attention fixes itself more slowly and carelessly on the objects which surround him. When he is in the shed, his usual food is found in excess of his wants, his thirst is much keener and more frequent, and a continual dejection and lowness of spirits or a transitory agitation disturb all his functions. When the farmers or graziers notice these premonitory signs for the first time they pay but little attention thereto; but if the contagion has found its way into their stalls and sheds they are no longer deceived by them, but begin to apprehend that in a day or two fresh victims will be added to the number.

2. Period of Initiation.– Soon the elaboration of the virulent miasma in the organic structure changes the quality of the blood and humours, the functions of assimilation and secretion are modified, the nervous centres receive vitiated organic elements and are disturbed in their physiological conditions, and the smitten animal displays that state of latent uneasiness which he is imperfectly conscious of by a general look of heaviness and stupor (Τυφος), which has suggested for this disease its name of typhus.

Indeed, the poor animal's eyes are fixed, the hearing becomes obtuse or indifferent, as may be seen in the sinking of the ears, those organs which are so sensitive, so contractile, and so vigilant in herbivorous animals. With the head hanging down and motionless, the neck stretched out, their forelegs open and spread, their buttocks drawn together and one of them completely lax, they seem to succumb beneath the weight of their bodies. In a word, the animal exhibits through its whole bearing a heavy sadness, a general dejection, which bespeak a great derangement in the whole structure. From this time, in the animals which are most seriously affected, the appetite ceases, the rumination becomes irregular and partial, whilst in some others the appetite and rumination are maintained in different degrees.

But the incubation of the morbid elements pursues its course, the alteration of the blood becomes general, and the circulation is increased and quickened. After this the fever interposes and stops the secretions, that of the udders is dried up, the mucous channels cease to flow, the mucous membrane of the mouth becomes whitish, the little glands situated on it are more permanent, especially in the circumference of the gums; the floor of the tongue and the larynx are inflamed, the mucous membrane of the cow's sexual organs is red and furrowed with livid streaks, the white of the eye is parched, and the skin feels alternately hot and cold, as well as the horns and hoofs.

Some of the sufferers have an external horripilation, transient shiverings are felt in the front and hind quarters and at the junction of the limbs with the trunk. Some pregnant cows near their delivery miscarry. In a word, at this period of irritation, the whole frame is at war with the typhic elements which besiege it, and which overcome the preservative power of the vital forces, and from this general disturbance arises an incandescent fever, which drains and stops all the secretions at their source.

These general symptoms are the first signs and warnings of functional derangements more significant, which may, however, vary according to the predispositions of each animal, and transfer their evolutions either to the nervous centres or to the respiratory mucous membrane, or to that of the digestive channels, in the inflammatory and febrile form of the contagious typhus. Such at least is what we observe in the typhus of 1865 in England.

The functional derangements, in truth, subordinate to and depending on the predispositions exhibited by the cattle, are far from being the same in all. In some, the nervous derangements predominate; in others, it is those of the respiratory, and in others, it is those of the digestive channels.

As in this period of irritation the nervous centres are more particularly affected, the animal suffers cerebral and rickety pains, a constant cephalalgia, which provokes vague anxiety; he is sometimes cheerful, sometimes wild and furious; he clenches his teeth and yawns, the muscles of his face spasmodically contract, the spine feels very sensitive when pressed, a burning and insatiable thirst comes on, the breathing is hurried, and the intestinal evacuations are suspended.

In this form the toxæmia appears to concentrate about the nervous centres – as is observed elsewhere at the outset of certain violent fevers, in the typhus and typhoid fever of man, for instance – and some of their number may perish the victims of these nervous disorders, and even fall as if struck with electricity. They die apparently from the result of the typhic poison; for at this second period, we do not trace in the nervous centres those injuries which might account for so sudden a death.

When the respiratory apparatus concentrates upon it the febrile congestion, the breathing becomes painful, accelerated, embarrassed, sometimes convulsive, and a deep, oppressive cough is heard from time to time. The animal, under the yoke of this oppressive uneasiness, turns his head from right to left, scents, and seems to question his flanks, where the seat of the disorder is; and then, whether the pulmonary affection is congestive or inflammatory or emphysematous, he may die of the consequences of obstruction to the pulmonary circulation and from the alteration of the blood, under the influence of a slow asphyxia, but only at the third or fourth period.

Finally, when the typhus localizes more particularly its morbid phenomena on the digestive channels, we discern local alterations on the floor of the tongue and the buccal mucous membrane, spots of livid red, leaving behind them ulcerations of greater or less extent and depth on different parts of the intestinal canal. In this form, which follows more regularly all the periods, constipation is obstinate at the outset, evacuation of the bowels takes place with difficulty, the fæces are hard and the urine scanty, the belly is inflated and sensitive.

Sometimes at this period of initiation, one of these three symptomatic forms – the nervous, the pulmonary, and the digestive – may predominate exclusively, so far as to mask the disease as a whole, and to constitute it a special malady. But in that case, it is only the exaggeration of the functional derangements which in their total constitute the typhus: for when the distemper pursues its course, these three principal centres of life are always affected in different degrees. Thus, not one of the cattle smitten with the typhus goes through all the phases of the disease, without suffering at a given moment in its nervous, respiratory, and digestive functions.

In this respect, the typhus of the ox presents an apparent analogy with the typhoid fever in man, although it is different. Consequently, the name of typhus fever given by some veterinary surgeons, is not altogether inapplicable to it.

3. Period of Duration.– At this stage of the disease, which may be said to extend from the fourth to the seventh day, the nervous derangements are confined to symptoms of uneasiness and sensibility along the dorsal spine; for those cases which exhibited more violent derangement in the nervous functions have proved fatal. In this period of the disease the breathing is more embarrassed, particularly when the pulmonary form of the disease prevails. The pulse, which is hard and frequent, indicates from forty to sixty pulsations; the beatings of the heart are more violent and audible; the mucous membranes, dry at the outbreak, recover their secretions, but these latter are endowed with irritating properties. Thus the eyelids, swollen and tumefied at the edges beneath the lashes, drip with a corrosive liquid, which soon marks its furrow along the chanfrin; the bronchiæ, the trachea, the nostrils, the salivary glands, exude a serosity which runs out of the nasal and buccal orifices. The exanthematic eruption having discharged itself through the digestive channels, constipation is followed by diarrhœa, rumination is completely stopped, the beast declines all solid nutriment, and pants for drinks, – for those especially which have a slight taste of acidity in them.

The derangements at this period pursue a rapid course – the breathing becomes more and more difficult, the skin is hot and dry, the hairs stiffen more and more, gases are developed in the cellular tissues beneath the skin, along the dorsal vertebræ, at the abdominal folds of the posterior limbs and under the abdomen, in the form of flat, uneven, crepitant tumours, which crackle when pressed with the hand; the diarrhœa becomes more liquefied and irritant, for then it is no longer a flow of droppings covered with mucus which is expelled, but secretions already putrid, sometimes reddish in colour, and attended with fœtid gases, which induce tenesmus in the rectum, and force up the tail. The animal grows perceptibly lean, his dejection is extreme, and cows which are with calf miscarry.

At night, the animal seems to have an increase of fever, sometimes of a remittent type, after which he becomes drowsy and lies down to rest himself or to sleep, if he can; but the difficulty of breathing, the abdominal pains, soon force him to rise again, which he cannot do without an effort.

4. Period of Decline and Sinking.– This stage is observed to extend from the eighth day to the twelfth or the fourteenth. The morbid functions pursue their course, for the disease has its regular phases and a successive variation of phenomena. The secretions, which a few days before were fluid and irritating, have undergone a change; they have become thick and purulent, they flow more slowly from the ocular mucous membranes, and also from the nasal and buccal, which are red and inflamed, and they already emit a fœtid smell. The dull tarnished eyes become hollowed, purulent mucus lodges within their orbits, the bronchiæ are stopped up, the breathing grows louder and more panting, the animal instinctively stretches his neck to ease it; the wasting of the flesh exposes the bones of the sacrum and coccyx, laying bare the vertebræ and the ribs; the emphysematous tumours are more extensive and crackling; the skin, less heated, wrinkles up and splits about the bony protuberances; the udders are crusty and excoriated; detached boils, hard and rounded at first, then soft and purulent, begin to show themselves on the trunk and the upper parts of the limbs. The diarrhœa, still frequent, becomes bloody and intolerably offensive.

At this final period the organic structure yields to the effects of a general alteration of the liquids and solids. The vital force has lost the power of reaction; a mass of blood, decomposed by the double influence of a virulent toxæmia and the obstructions of respiration, conveys to all the organs a principle of dissolution; the nervous system is in a manner paralysed, as is shown in the animal's insensibility.

The secretions stop up the various channels and cavities; they lodge within them; they undergo a putrid decomposition, and pass out with difficulty in the form of a purulent and bloody flux, in the highest degree infectious. Very soon the sick animal has ceased really to live; it struggles and labours with its agony; if the lungs are clogged with gas or fluid they rattle hurriedly and often; the animal cannot hold its head up even when lying down, and when standing moves it to and fro as if affected with the natural shaking of old age, and as if seeking to ward off some indescribable evil, the occurrence of which it was awaiting.

The animal's body is a prey given up beforehand to the laws of organic decomposition: the internal mucous membrane of the cheeks and lips peels off in strips when rubbed; the sores on the skin have a livid and gangrenous look; the eggs which the flies deposit on the edge of the eyelids and at the nasal orifices, or on the excoriations of the skin, quickly pass into the state of larvæ. The air they expire is cold and infectious; the native caloric, extinguished in every focus successively, disappears; the vaginal mucous membrane is tumefied, the anal opening gapes, and from it flows a bloody and decomposed liquid which the rectum can no longer expel. The mouth, half open and coated with a thick glutinous foam, vainly tries to inhale long draughts of air which can no longer reach the lungs. Finally, if the animal is lying down, he expires in slow agony, his head borne down by its own weight; or, if standing, he sinks and falls down, his death having anticipated the fall.

Such are the symptoms – the subjective signs which enable us to detect the contagious typhus of the ox. But all animals do not exhibit these disorders of the vital functions with the same regularity and excess. Some of these we have seen, from first to last, sustain the internal effects of the morbid process – in some sort passively – without revealing any deep derangements in the nervous, respiratory, and digestive functions. The poisonous virus had smitten them; they suffered in their general structure; they looked stupefied; they lost, at a given moment, their appetite and rumination; they had fever; their breathing had become short and frequent; they had diarrhœa; they gradually lost flesh, and the excreta passed through certain changes and transformations. In a word, the animal had manifestly the bovine typhus; but, thanks to a relative immunity, to a special organization, which renders some of these beasts capable of resisting the contagion for a long period, and sometimes altogether15– thanks to that variety which we observe in different constitutions (for small-pox and typhus in man, and the true typhoid fever in animals, do not operate with the same violence on all alike) – thanks to this privileged organization, – we have seen some oxen pass through every stage of the disease without exhibiting this terrible train of morbid phenomena.

In these cases – for even this mild form of the distemper at last produces death – the injuries fix themselves more exclusively on the digestive channels, and we witness, in dissection, ulcerations in some, in others mere spots of a livid red, more or less extensive.

Finally, although the typhus be one of the gravest maladies which destroy and decimate cattle, all sick animals are not mortally affected thereby. In the present epizootia, five per cent., as nearly as can be ascertained, recover; and when that happens, signs of a favourable omen are observable during the course of the attack. In these favourable instances, indeed, the symptoms, even though they exhibit a certain gravity, pursue a regular course; fever does not become remittent; the fæcal discharge is copious and easy, with less fœtor; the animal loses flesh slowly and progressively; the tumours are cutaneous, inflammatory; their character is good, depurative, and rather purulent than gaseous and crackling. The droppings do not show that high degree of pestilential decomposition described above; the animal in his drink welcomes and digests a mixture of bran and flour; the secretions of purulent mucus and the fæcal discharges dry up and stop in the early part of the period of decline; the epidermis of the openings through which they passed out peels off in thin scales, and afterwards in scurfs or husks – in a word, the economy does not experience those acute disturbances which strike one of the tripods of life – that is to say, either the nervous centres, the lungs, or the digestive organs.