Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/413

CATTLE. McKenny Hughes, On the More Important Breeds of Cattle Which Have Been Recognized in the British Isles, and Their Relation to Other Archæological and Historical Discoveries (Westminster, 1896); Oskar Knispel, Die Verbreitung der Rinderschläge in Deutschland, nebst Darstellung der öffentlichen Zuchtbestrebungen (Berlin, 1897); Richard Lydekker, Wild Oxen, Sheep, and Goats of All Lands, Living and Extinct (London, 1898); A. Lydtin and H. Werner, Das deutsche Rind; Beschreibung der in Deuischland heimischen Rinderschläge (Berlin, 1899). See also and Plate of.  CATTLE,. A breed of the so-called wild cattle of Great Britain (Bos taurus, var. scoticus), preserved in Chillingham Park, Northumberland, England. This park, the property of the Earl of Tookerville, is a remnant of one of the great forests of Great Britain. It was formerly believed that these cattle, other herds of which are found at Cadzon, near Chillingham, at Chartley (Staffordshire), Somerford and Lyme (Cheshire), and Kilmory (Argyllshire), were descended from the (q.v.) without contact with any domesticated breed, but it is now held that the remote ancestors of the existing animals must have been partially domesticated. The Chillingham cattle, which approach most nearly to the true primigenius type, number about sixty, and are described as of medium size, compact in body, and dingy-white in color, with black- tipped horns, brownish muzzle, and red ears. They are timorous, unless hard-pressed, and feed by night. The cows conceal the calves under tall ferns and undergrowth, and resist all approach to them. It is said that these cattle refuse to mingle with any other. This prevents degeneracy of breed, and the accepted characteristics are also maintained by destroying any calf that shows deviations of color. For illustration, see Plate of.  CATTLE-GUARDS. See.  CATTLE PLAGUE, (Ger.), or  (Fr., peste bovine). A contagious eruptive fever or exanthema common among animals of the bovine species; sheep, goats, deer, and other allied species occasionally, however, catch it from cattle. Pigs, horses, carnivora, and man are immune to the disease. It occurs indigenously on the plains of western Russia and throughout Asia, whence it has at various times overspread most parts of the Old World. As in smallpox, scarlatina, and other eruptive fevers, an incubative stage, varying between two and twenty days, intenenes between the introduction of the virus into the system by either inoculation or contagion, and the development of the characteristic symptoms. These consist essentially of congestion of the mucous and cutaneous surfaces, with a sort of aphthous eruption, and thickening, softening, and desquamation of the superficial investing membrane. The disease runs a tolerably fixed and definite course, which is not materially altered by any known remedial measures. It seldom attacks the same individual a second time.

. The cattle plague has been recognized for upward of a thousand years. It appears to have destroyed the herds of the warlike tribes that overran the Roman Empire during the Fourth and Fifth centuries. About 810 it

traveled with the armies of Charlemagne into France, and about the same period is also supposed to have visited England. Several times throughout the course of every century it spread from the plains of Russia over the western countries of Europe, and is stated to have again visited England about 1225. Although causing every few years great losses on the Continent of Europe, the plague does not appear to have again shown itself in England until 1714, when it appeared at Islington, about the middle of July, and was very destructive for about three months, but was again got rid of toward the end of the year. In 1744 it was in Holland, destroying there, in two years, 200,000 cattle; in Denmark, from 1745 to 1749, it killed 280,000; in some provinces of Sweden it spared only 2 per cent. of the horned cattle. It made terrible havoc throughout Italy, destroying 400,000 animals in Piedmont alone. In April, 1745, the plague was again imported into England, probably by some white calves from Holland. It continued its devastation for twelve years, but it is now impossible accurately to determine the losses it occasioned. In the third and fourth years of its ravages 80,000 cattle were slaughtered, and double that number are supposed to have died. In 1747 40,000 cattle died in Nottingham and Lancashire alone; while so late as 1757 30,000 perished in Cheshire in six months. In March, 1770, the disease was brought with some hay from Holland to Portsoy, in the Moray Firth, several cattle died, and others to the value of about £800 being destroyed, the further spread of the pest was prevented. By the wars which wasted Europe toward the close of the Eighteenth and first eighteen years of the Nineteenth Century, cattle plague was spread widely over the Continent, and occasioned, wherever it occurred, terrible losses. Since then, at short intervals, it has spread—always being traceable to its source on the Russian plains—over Poland, Hungary, Austria, Prussia, portions of Germany, and Italy, and has extended to Egypt. The following are the records of its destructive career during this outbreak:

To this total must be added 11,000 cases known to have been attacked and unaccounted for, and upward of 60,000 healthy cattle slaughtered to prevent the spread of the disease. Plague was again imported into Hull in 1872, with cattle from Cronstadt; it spread into several districts of the East Riding, attacked 72 animals, 51 of which were killed and 21 died. In 1877 an outbreak took place in Germany, but by energetic measures was speedily suppressed without extensive losses. The most extensive losses, however, have occurred on the steppes of Russia, and in Turkestan, Persia, China, Japan, Java, Central Africa, and Bechuanaland. In the last-named country 1,200,000 cattle died of plague. At the present time (1902) the disease is especially destructive in Asia and Africa. 