Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/73

Rh MURRAIN 61 domestic animals, even mankind sometimes becoming infected, but its ravages are most severe among cattle, sheep, and pigs. Since it was introduced into the United Kingdom it has proved more disastrous on the whole, perhaps, than any other murrain, and has most injuriously affected agricultural interests. What makes it more serious is the fact that one attack is not protective against another, an animal sometimes being affected a second time within a few months. Symptoms. This is an eruptive fever, characterized by vesicles or blisters in the mouth, sometimes in the nostrils, and on parts of the body where the skin is thin and least covered with hair, as on the udder and towards the feet. The animal cannot eat so well as usual, suffers much pain and inconvenience, loses condition, and, if a milk-yielding creature, gives less milk, or, if pregnant, may abort. Sometimes the feet become very much diseased, and the animal is so crippled that it has to be destroyed. It is often fatal to young creatures. It is transmitted more especially by the saliva and the discharges from the vesicles on the feet and udder, though all the secretions and excretions are doubtless infective, as well as all articles soiled by them. The disease can be produced by injecting the saliva intravenously. These are the best-known murrains affecting cattle ; but there are others which, though they cannot be noticed here, are of some moment. One in particular demands most serious consideration, the disease known as &quot;consumption,&quot; &quot; pining,&quot; and (from the appearance of the morbid growths in the chest) &quot; grapes,&quot; and to the medical and veterinary pathologist as &quot;tuberculosis.&quot; It is a highly -infectious disorder in cattle, is becoming very common among the improved breeds, and causes heavy losses in dairy stock. It has been experimentally demonstrated that the tuber culous matter, as well as milk and the juice of the flesh of diseased cows, when given to healthy animals or inocu lated in them, will produce the malady, and this leads to the grave question as to the danger incurred by mankind through the consumption of the flesh and milk of tubercu lous cows. This is a pressing sanitary problem which demands early solution. Prevention of Murrains. The legislative measures necessary for prevention or suppression of murrains are based upon the fact that these diseases depend for their extension solely upon their contagious properties. The object is, therefore, either to prevent the admission of the contagious principle, i.e., through diseased animals or articles which have become infective by contact with them, or to destroy it as quickly as possible. The necessity for this is abundantly evident on every page in the history of these scourges. It is almost impossible to realize the loss and embarrass ment caused by cattle-plague, lung-plague, and foot-and-mouth disease only. By the first-named murrain it has been estimated that the loss in Europe from 1711 to 1796 only -vas 200,000,000 head of cattle. And in this century the disease has not been less .severe, though its opportunities for extension, much greater than before, have been much diminished by the progress made in veteri nary science. From 1841 to 1844 Egypt lost 400,000 head of cattle ; and 1,000,000 perished in Russia in 1844-1845. From 1849 to 1863 the Austrian states lost 258,107. In Hungary from 1861 to 1867 this steppe murrain appeared in 680 communes having a bovine population of 908,209 ; 25 per cent, were attacked, and of these 145,474 or 63 9 per cent, were lost. In 1860-1861 Austria lost 4800 cattle ; and in Russia 183,678 died in 1860. In 1865-1866 Great Britain is supposed to have lost 233,629 head, valued at from five to eight millions of pounds, though this is probably far below the actual figure ; and Holland, receiving the infection from England, at this time lost 115,000 cattle. In 1870 Germany reported 8122 as dead from rinderpest ; and during the Franco- German war, when the disease was introduced into France by the German troops, the Bas-Rhin department alone lost 6104 cattle and sheep at the period of the invasion, and 582 cattle and 944 sheep when the troops returned, the amount of indemnity paid for cattle destroyed being 1,622,249 francs, while in Lorraine 5000 cattle and more than 3000 sheep, and in the Haut-Rhin 14,000 cattle perished, the compensation to cover this loss being estimated at 1,500,000 francs. In August 1873 thirteen governments in Russia were invaded by rinderpest, and it was computed that 18,000 animals were attacked, 14,000 of which died or were destroyed. These figures give but a faint idea of the appalling destruction wrought by rinderpest ; and lung- plague, though its ravages are not so striking or immediate, has been scarcely less formidable. For instance, in Holland in 230 parishes the average yearly loss has been reckoned at 49,661. In 705 parishes in Wurtemberg 1706 stables contained 10,214 cattle ; of these 4200 were attacked, and 2583 were killed or died. In France, according to published statistics, the loss caused by this murrain in 217 communes of the department of the Xord during seven consecutive years was 11,200 in a bovine population of 280,000 or a total in nineteen years of 218,000 head, the estimated value of which was fifty-two millions of francs. In the departments of Aveyron, Cantal, and Lozere the average loss for a long time was not less than 35 per cent, of the entire cattle. In Australia the losses caused by it during thirteen years were supposed to be at least 30 to 40 per cent, of the whole number of cattle, or about 1,404,097 head, which, if valued at only 6 each, would amount to about 8,500,000. Only a very imperfect notion can be formed of the destruction it has caused in Great Britain and Ireland since its introduction ; but for the six years ending with 1860 it has been calculated that there perished con siderably more than a million of cattle in the United Kingdom, the value of which must have amounted to more than twelve millions of pounds. From 1863 to 1866 the death-rate from the scourge was from 50 to 60 per cent, annually. The deaths from foot-and-mouth disease vary in number at dif ferent outbreaks, and are much less than in the invasions of steppe murrain and lung-plague. The most serious feature of this murrain is its affecting a large percentage (frequently nine-tenths) of the ruminants and pigs on a farm or in a district. In 1839, in a dis trict in Wurtemberg comprising about 8 square miles and con taining 11,000 head of cattle, only 1300 or 12 per cent, escaped ; in the arrondissement of Miilhausen, Alsace, containing 32,000 animals, in 1862-3-4 only about 4000, or one in eight, were not attacked ; in the department of the Xord in 1839 of 277,000 cattle 120,000 were affected, more than one-half of the sheep, and one-fifth of the pigs. In Baden in 1864 of 607,825 cattle 139,995 were infected. It is scarcely possible to arrive at anything like a correct estimate of the number of cattle affected during any par ticular outbreak in Britain. Perhaps it would not be an exaggera tion to assert that 150,000 or 200,000 suffered from the disease in 1872, and from 1839 up to 1874 it was estimated that the money loss it caused the country was 13,000,000, but this is probably far below the mark. It has been calculated that the loss experienced from an outbreak in Baden in 1869 was no less than 103,000, and for the southern states of Germany 833,000. France is sup posed to have lost from this disease, among cattle only, in twenty years 4,000,000. When it is considered how rapidly animals lose condition, especi ally fat stock ; what losses occur when it appears among milch cows and those in calf, or amongst oxen used for draught, and among sheep, pigs, and poultry ; what embarrassment it may occasion to agriculture and the cattle and milk trade, not to speak of the expense of curative measures, it will be seen what a serious murrain this is, even under the most favourable circumstances. It is still more so when it assumes a severe character, which it often does, and is likely to be accompanied by complications. The great rapidity with which it spreads greatly increases these losses. In a very few months it has been observed to enter the eastern frontiers and spread over a large portion of the continent of Europe, infecting German}, Switzerland, France, Holland, and Belgium, and reaching England, always following the course of cattle traffic. These examples and estimates afford after all only a very faint notion of the devastation, misery, embarrassment, and loss that murrains occasion, and it is this which has compelled enlightened Governments to adopt severe measures for their extinction, or at least limitation. These measures are successful in proportion as they are well devised and energetically carried out, for all the murrains or contagious diseases are perfectly amenable to con trol, and may even be totally suppressed by international agreement and combined action. There is reason to hope that this most desirable result will be ultimately attained, but at present it is a long way off some infected countries, in consequence of imperfect measures or the absence of any veterinary sanitary police, proving a standing menace to others which are either free from infection, or are energetically endeavouring tp get rid of it. The measures now in force may be briefly said to be interdiction of the import ation of cattle from countries in which cattle -plague, foot-and- mouth disease, or contagious pleuro-pneumonia is prevalent, or compulsory slaughter at the ports of debarkation. In some of the infected countries, as in the United Kingdom, where foot-and- mouth disease and contagious pleuro-pneumonia are always more or less prevalent, infected cowsheds, farms, or districts are rigor ously isolated, so far as the movement of animals from them is concerned, none being allowed to leave until the disease has been suppressed, and cattle-markets or fairs may be closed for a certain period. In contagious pleuro-pneumonia, diseased animals and those which have been in contact with them are slaughtered, and compensation allowed the owner for the latter by the local authori ties, while measures of cleansing and disinfection are enforced. The movement of cattle in, into, and from the infected area is closely watched to extinguish the contagion as speedily as possible