without eating; then a discharge from the
nostrils and eyes sets in; then diarrhœa
comes on, which quickly turns to dysentery,
and if this does not cease (which it does not
once in twenty cases) death follows—usually
within a week. It is firmly believed that the
rinderpest may lie dormant twenty-one days;
there is no doubt that it will, ten days. The
slightest contact with the skin or breathing
the breath of an infected beast is sufficient to
communicate the disorder; and the peasantry
believe that a herdsman can convey it from
one herd to another without himself suffering.
Under this belief, the Austrian government,
whenever the rinderpest breaks out,
establishes a cordon militaire, cutting off all
communication not only between all the
animals, but between all the inhabitants, of
the infected and uninfected districts. The
cattle dying within the cordon are buried
immediately, and, in many instances, all the
other cattle of the herd are slaughtered by
way of precaution: the owner being compensated
for the cattle so slaughtered, by the
government, but not for those dying of
disease.

In the district visited by Professor Simmonds
the rinderpest had been brought by
ten Russian oxen, purchased at a fair a
hundred miles distant, which were placed
among some of the owner's herd in a stable,
as they seemed dulled. There seems to be
no authentic case of the rinderpest having
broken out anywhere in Europe, except
Russia, and wherever it has made its
appearance in other parts of Europe it may
be distinctly traced to the importation of
the cattle of the steppes. Thus, it followed
the track of the Russian army to Belgium in
eighteen hundred and thirteen, and has never
been known since. In Prussian Poland it
breaks out from time to time, and some
ravages occur every three or four years in
the Esterhazy estates and other parts of
Hungary from the same cause—importation
of steppe cattle. But, it is always extinguished
by the rigid quarantine which the peasantry
eagerly assist the military in maintaining.

In consequence of the distant origin of this
disease—at least twelve hundred miles from
any part from which we receive cattle—and
of the stringent completely-organised arrangements
of all the continental governments for
excluding suspected cattle from their dominions,
it is the opinion of Professor Simmonds
that it is quite impossible that the rinderpest
can ever reach England. The murrain which
carried off so many thousand cattle in England
in the last century, was what is commonly
called the lung disease (Pleuro-pneumonia)
Pulmonary murrain, which is contagious in a
certain advanced stage, but which in no way,
as regards the flesh, partakes of a malignant
or poisonous nature.

Dr. Greenhow's Report to the President of
the Board of Health, which was prepared in
consequence of the alarming account given
by one of the new officers of health—a gentleman
of more zeal than veterinary or carcase-
butcher knowledge—drawn up with admirable
skill and clearness, would, had some
gentleman experienced in the diseases of
cattle been joined with so skilful a writer
and acute investigator as Dr. Greenhow,
have been a complete and permanent
authority on all the sanitary questions
connected with the meat and milk of crowded
cities. But the doctor, we are told, on the
authority of Professor Simmonds, had to
learn the characteristics of cattle disease
when he commenced his task.

Dr. Greenhow found, contrary to the
popular opinion of his medical brethren, the
cows of London cowhouses generally healthy.
It is natural that they should be so, because it
would not pay to keep unhealthy cows.
Whenever a cow becomes sick, she falls off in
her milk, so the cowkeeper who has to buy
food will, if wise, sell an unprofitable animal;
but no experienced veterinary surgeon will
concur in the opinion expressed in the report,
that situation and ventilation have very little
to do with the spread of the lung disease.
Professor Dick of Edinburgh told the Royal
Agricultural Society, the other day, that,
with satisfactory drainage and ventilation,
the pulmonary disease rarely appeared unless
introduced by contact with animals in an
advanced state of disease, and might be
driven from byres in which it already existed.
Cowkeepers told Dr. Greenhow just the
reverse; but, then, no stock-owner ever will
admit that there is any defect in his buildings.
We could point out a celebrated model-dairy
where the ravages of pulmonary disease have
been terrible, and where they might have been
anticipated by any one who could use his nose
when he entered the byre. But, the owner
will not admit that his ceilings are too low.
Many cowkeepers, to avoid all chance of
contagion, adopt the expensive plan of breeding
all their cows instead of buying.

In Holstein and the territory of the free
city of Hamburg the precautions against
pulmonary murrain are as severe as in Prussia
against rinderpest. The death of one animal
condemns the whole herd to slaughter and
burial; nevertheless, after being apparently
extinguished, the disease again broke out in
the marshes of the Elbe, two years ago, and
has raged ever since.

Dr. Greenhow shows that the cattle-murrain
terror, which lately prevailed among
medical and agricultural circles, arose from
mistaking the pulmonary murrain, which has
prevailed for some years past, here as well as
on the continent, for the rinderpest.

As to the sale of the meat of animals which
have died of disease, or of other causes than
the knife, the report makes it plain that a
great deal is sold for soup and sausages in
London, although the new market has put
an end to the open sale of diseased animals.
It is very lamentable and disgusting that any