III. Preventive and remedial recommendations when the plague has attacked a locality.-1. Should, unfortunately, the plague reach the farm or cowsheds, it will be the cattle owner's duty to separate without delay the diseased from the sound stock. At once, and before any symptoms of the malady have appeared in the animals which may have been in contact with the diseased beast, he should place them in roomy, well-cleansed and dried, well-aired and disinfected sheds, having previously washed their bodies with water containing disinfecting soap, or with a tepid solution of chloride of lime; he will thus place them in the best condition to resist the further spread of the disease. But if he do not possess the necessary accommodation for the removal of the healthy animals, he ought, after separating the diseased beast, to make a thorough disinfection of the house or shed, in the manner to be described afterwards, before he permits the sound stock to remain in it. 2. The sick beast, if allowed to remain alive, should be well rubbed down and thoroughly cleansed, be kept in a warm but well-ventilated and clean shed, and be covered with a clean horse-rug. The animal will thus be put in a favourable condition to receive such curative treatment as the veterinary surgeon or farmer may consider it expedient to employ.

3. Having failed to obtain any assurance of the existence of effective curative methods, the Commissioners only venture for the present to indicate some general suggestions as to diet and treatment, which may be useful to farmers.

(a.) Kind of food.-One of the early symptoms of the disease is, that the appetite fails and rumination ceases. When a dissection is made of an animal that has died of the plague, the stomachs are usually found to contain from one hundred to two hundred pounds of undigested food. This mass of matter interferes with the functions of nutrition in the case of new food, and, further, hinders the action of medicine which may be administered, by greatly retarding its absorption. As soon, therefore, as the beast shows the early symptoms of the disease, its ordinary food should be changed; and, as rumination has stopped, the dry food should be replaced by warm liquid stimulating mashes given moderate quantity.

in

(b.) Warmth of the air.-It is stated that the temperature of the air of the stall should be kept warm, probably not lower than 60 degrees Fahr.

(c.) Warmth of the skin. It is desirable to keep the skin of the animal as

warm as possible, and if it can be done, to promote perspiration. Without expressing any decided opinion as to the exact efficacy of steam or hot-air baths, we yet believe the evidence is sufficient to warrant a fair trial of these measures.

(d.) It is important to lose no time in beginning the treatment of the complaint with salines or diaphoretics, or even stimulants, according to the judgment of the veterinary surgeon as to the state of the disease. Every hour that is lost lessens the chance of a successful result. After cattle have been exposed to infection, some veterinary surgeons consider it useful to give saline and febrifuge medicines at once, even though it is not certain the animal has taken the disease. (e.) When diarrhoea occurs, there seems little doubt that it should be controlled, and not encouraged.

(f) The animal must be supported as much as possible by very nutritious food.

(9.) Milking cows should be regularly milked as long as any milk can be got. The milk, of course, should not be used as food.

The general diffusion of the disorder through the system leaves little hope that any local treatment is likely to prove effective.

When the animal shows signs of convalescence, it should only be very gradually restored to the dry food requiring rumination. It may be treated with moderate stimulants and tonics, among which bark and iron are considered to be the most efficacious.

IV. Measures for disinfecting infected sheds and cattle.-1. When animals attacked with the plague have become convalescent, they ought to be kept apart from sound beasts for three weeks, and even then not be permitted to associate with them till they have been washed and disinfected as described previously.

2. During all the time that animals suffer from the disease, the litter fouled by them, with the dung and discharge on it, should be burned, and not be allowed to mix with other manure. It contains the poison in a concentrated form, and it is questionable whether it can be disinfected efficiently.

3. The sheds in which the diseased animals have been must be thoroughly purified and disinfected. The roof and walls should be washed with lime. The floor and woodwork, after being thoroughly washed with water containing washing soda, should be again washed all over with a solution of chloride of lime, containing 1 lb. to a pailful.

4. The hides and horns of animals which have died of the disease ought to be buried with the animal, according to

the Orders in Council. But the hides and horns of those which have been killed to escape the spread of the infection must be dipped in, or thoroughly mopped all over, and, in the case of the hides, on both sides, with water containing 4 lbs. of chloride of lime to three pailfuls of water. Unless this be done with care, a most fertile source of contagion will be preserved.

5. The attendants upon diseased beasts should not be allowed to go near the sound animals in the same farm.

6. Every one who has had the plague in his premises should feel the responsibility which rests upon him to destroy, by careful cleansing and disinfection, every

trace of the disorder which may be left on his pastures or stalls, or on his cattle, their horns, hides, manure, and litter. Under favourable circumstances for its preservation, the contagious poison has been kept, with all its virulence unim paired, for many months. Unless, therefore, each person uses his utmost efforts to extinguish the seeds of the plague which lurk about his farm, they may become a centre of contagion, which will again spread it abroad through the country, and render unavailing the sacrifice necessary for the speedy suppression of this terrible scourge.

It has thus nearly doubled itself at intervals of four weeks.

The figures, however, formidable as they are, by no means represent the real amount of loss and suffering inflicted by a calamity which ravages some districts while it spares others. A pressure which would be less if distributed over a large area, is ruinous and crushing when those on whom it rests are comparatively few. Cheshire, for instance, which depends in great measure upon its dairy stock, has had, up to the 27th January, 17,971 cases of disease, Forfarshire 10,099, Lanarkshire 4371, Cambridgeshire 4364, Lincolnshire 4080, Norfolk 4063, Yorkshire 19,331; and the records of particular villages and farms where the disease has raged would tell a still more distressing tale.

1 These returns do not profess to give the total number of cases which have occurred in Great Britain, but only those which have been ascertained from the official information received from Inspectors.

The great breeding districts of the United Kingdom, into which in ordinary times cattle are but rarely and casually imported-Ireland, the North and West Highlands of Scotland, including the counties of Argyle, Ross, and Sutherland, and the whole of Wales except Denbighshire and Flintshire-have hitherto enjoyed an entire immunity. The disease has for the most part established itself, by direct importation from London or from Holland, at various centres on the eastern side of the island, and thence has travelled towards the west or south-west, traversing alike low and elevated lands, and not apparently influenced by varieties of soil. It has moved irregularly, leaping not unfrequently from one point to another at a considerable distance, but seems generally to have followed the course of highways and ordinary lines of cattle traffic. A careful observer2, who has attentively watched its progress through his own district, states that, whilst it often passes one stock and attacks another at a greater distance from a centre, it invariably returns as it came to the one passed. "This passing," he says, "is only apparent: it is owing to one stock being more predisposed to the disease than the other; that is, the one attacked has less power of resistance to the poison than the one that apparently escaped it." The means by which it has transported itself to new centres can in a great number of instances be traced with certainty, but they often elude detection. In the contagiousness and the mortality

2 Dr. Moffat, of Hawarden, Flintshire.

Taking actual numbers instead of percentages, there were, out of the 120,740 cases of disease reported up to the 27th January

Killed Unaccounted Died. Recovered. diseased. for. 16,742 73,750 14,162 16,086 From the above figures it will have been observed that as the number of diseased animals killed has diminished, the percentage of attacks among the animals exposed to infection has increased, whilst the percentage of deaths from disease among the animals attacked has risen still more steadily, and in a greater proportion. Were slaughtering entirely abandoned, the recoveries would probably not exceed fifteen per cent.

All breeds of cattle appear to be subject to the disease; but the more highly bred the animal, the sooner, generally speaking, it succumbs. English stock, compared with foreign breeds, seem to have less power of resistance. Of the Dutch, it has been observed in this country, that although not perhaps less liable to be

3 Decimals are omitted.

attacked than other varieties, they survive the first attack longer, and more of them recover. Animals in good condition, says another observer, resist the longest; but, if they become diseased, the disease runs its course in them more rapidly.

Of the influences of weather and temperature nothing definite can be said. The long drought of the summer has been followed by copious and almost incessant rains, with continued southwesterly gales. The disease increased in intensity with the advance of winter, and it has travelled commonly in a direction counter to that of the prevailing winds. It is proper to add that the year has been peculiarly favourable to the spread of zymotic diseases generally, and to the rapid decomposition of organic matter.

We have endeavoured, but without success, to obtain specific information as to the introduction of the disease into this country. Inquiry has been made, with this object, of the several persons through whose hands the cargo of bullocks im

4 Decimals are omitted. The sum of the figures, therefore, in each horizontal line will not be exactly 100.

ported from Revel in May passed after their arrival at Hull. This cargo, it will be remembered, was divided, on landing, into two portions: part were disposed of through salesmen in different towns in the North of England, and the rest sent to London and sold to butchers in small lots, a lot of twenty being bought and sent to Gosport by a Government contractor. Questions have been addressed to all these persons, and from their answers we have no reason to doubt that all the animals were bought and slaughtered, so far as the purchasers could judge, in a perfectly healthy state. With respect to the diffusion of the disease in the Russian Empire itself (setting aside the steppe provinces in Europe and Asia), we have no satisfactory evidence. In the Baltic provinces it does not seem to have shown itself last year. There were many scattered outbreaks (which indeed are frequent) in Central and Western Russia; and it raged with considerable violence between January and May in the Government of Kowno, which is very near to the port of Memel, and between January and July in that of Volhynia, which borders on the Galician frontier, and from whence cattle may be easily driven to the eastern terminus of the Vienna and Lemberg Railway. A subsequent outbreak occurred in Kowno in November, and led to the immediate enforcement by the Prussian authorities of the stringent regulations which the law of Prussia orders to be applied to the frontier of an infected district. The theory that the disease originated in the London cowsheds is inconsistent, not only with the evidence appended to our First Report, but with that which we have since received. The careful observations made by Dr. Ballard, Medical Officer of Health for St. Mary's, Islington, confirmed by those of the Medical Officers for Marylebone and St. Pancras, and the experience of other metropolitan districts, are in direct conflict with this theory, and point distinctly to contagion as the means by which the plague was originated and propagated in London.

II. We adverted in our First Report to the outbreak of the plague in Holland. Weekly returns of its progress in the Province of South Holland, to which until recently it was practically confined by strict measures of police strengthened by a military and naval cordon, have been published by the Dutch Government, in a form closely resembling those issued here by the

5 No cattle, however, were imported into the United Kingdom in 1865 from any Prussian port.

Veterinary Department of the Privy Council. From these returns it appears that the total number of cases, which was 4084 on the 7th October and 6744 on the 4th November (the attacks having dimi nished in the intervening weeks), rose by the 2nd December to 11,348, and by the 30th December to 21,437, nearly doubling itself in each month. The increase is attributed to the removal of the cattle from the pastures to their stalls, the close contact causing the infection to run its course more rapidly. During the last three weeks there has again been a gradual decrease. "In one respect, however," says Mr. Ward, Secretary to Your Majesty's Legation at The Hague, in his report on this subject, dated 10th January, 1866, "the last return presents an unfavourable appearance. Out of the seven places in which the breaking out of the plague is reported for the first time, it is stated that the origin of it cannot be traced to any contagious medium, contrary to the opinion of high authorities upon the subject, that every case would be found so traceable. Again, though in the original focus of the disease a diminution is announced for the first time since the commencement of it, yet in other cases where it has long raged, it has assumed a more aggravated character. The area over which it has spread is also increasing. Returns have been made for the province of Utrecht, in which a few isolated cases in the early part of the season had been followed by an entire cessation of the scourge, showing, for the week ending December 30, 349 new cases, 165 deaths, 2 slaughtered, and 146 recovered; making a total of 1104 cases, 394 deaths, 27 slaughtered, 316 recovered, and 367 still under treatment. The provinces of North Brabant and North Holland have also been invaded, according to the latest accounts, though no official returns of the extent of the visitation have yet been made." The rate of mortality in Holland, we must add, is considerably lower, as Mr. Ward observes, than in this country. The latest returns issued since the date of his Report show that out of 29,031 cases, the total number in South Holland, 7410 were slaughtered, 8966 died, and 9896 (or about 34 per cent.) recovered; and these proportions have not very materially varied since the commencement; whilst in Utrecht, where the num ber slaughtered has been inconsiderable, there have been 926 recoveries to 790 deaths. The Dutch Government appears to have placed its chief reliance on the maintenance of the cordon drawn around the most infected province, which permits no egress, nor, except under most

stringent restrictions, any ingress of cattle. A further exception, however, is made in favour of through traffic, and the Dutch-Rhenish Railway, which conveys weekly large quantities of cattle for exportation to England, passes through the heart of the enclosed district. The enforcement of other internal regulations has been left to the local authorities, except that the Government has interfered to close markets where the authorities of the commune had refused to do this. Some difficulty seems also to have been experienced in inducing the peeple to submit to restraint. We are told that "in the Province of Utrecht the action of the authorities is resisted by force, and has to be supported by military detachments. There are cases in which the troops are beaten off by large bands of peasants, and have to take the cow-sheds by regular siege'."

The Cattle Plague in Belgium has been made the subject of a careful and interesting Report by Mr. Barron, your Majesty's Secretary of Legation at Brussels. The energetic measures adopted by the Belgian Government have been completely successful. The total number of cases in that country has not exceeded 306, of which 17 died and all the rest were slaughtered. "The localities," says Mr. Barron, "where it was at first mistaken or concealed, are those which have had to struggle the longest to dislodge it. On one farm at Leffinghe, the whole herd of 40 were killed between November 23rd and December 8th. Three weeks after, on December 30th, the same disease broke out among the sheep, and the whole flock of 112 were sacrificed, 11 as diseased, and 101 as suspected. The carcasses of the latter, being perfectly sound, were sent

6 Under an order in the Nederlandsche Staats Courant for 30th November, 1865, no animal is to be introduced without (1) evident need, (2) a licence granted by the burgomaster of the place of destination, and (3) visé by the burgomaster of the place of despatch, who must have satisfied himself by (4) a declaration of some competent person (bevoegd deskundige) that the beast is sound and from an uninfected place; and the licence must also be (5) approved by the Royal Commissary for South Holland. The animal must (6) be accompanied by a person appointed by the burgomaster, and (7) given in charge, on arrival, to one or more appointed persons, and (8) slaughtered within a short fixed period.

7 Mr. Barron's Report. This is confirmed by the last Report of the Minister of the Interior.

for sale to England." One case lately occurred at Antwerp, on a milkman's premises, and was traced to a smuggled cow. The market was at once closed, and all egress of cattle from the town prohibited until further orders. The ravages, however, which the plague continues to make in South Holland, and its threatened advance into North Brabant, naturally excite great apprehension in Belgium; and a short Bill has just been introduced by the Government, which, if passed, will vest in the Executive powers virtually unlimited over both internal traffic and foreign commerce.

Nor has the disease been suffered to gain a footing in France. An animal bought at Malines, immediately before the promulgation of the decree of the 5th September, had been the means of introducing it, but it was promptly suppressed, at a total cost, says the Minister of the Interior, in an official report to the Emperor, of not more than 43 head. It reappeared in November, in the Jardin d'Acclimatation of the Bois de Boulogne, having been carried thither by two gazelles brought from India, which had been for three or four days in London. From them it rapidly spread to yaks, zebus, goats, and fallow deer, and the sacrifice of about 35 of these animals was necessary to arrest its progress.

III. As the disease has extended itself in this country, several Orders in Council have been issued. The general result of these Orders has been (1) to circumscribe the powers of the inspectors; (2) to enlarge those of the local authorities; (3) to replace the latter by new local authorities, with a new sphere of jurisdiction. The

The whole Bill is as follows:"Art. I. Le Gouvernement est autorisé à prescrire par arrêté royal les mesures que la crainte de l'invasion ou l'existence de maladies épizootiques, peut rendre nécessaires, tant dans l'intérieur du pays que sur les frontières, en ce qui concerne les relations de commerce avec l'étranger.

"Art. 2. Un règlement déterminera les conditions et le taux des indemnités qui pourraient être accordées aux détenteurs d'animaux malades ou suspects dont l'abatage serait ordonné.

"Art. 3. Les infractions aux dispositions prises en vertu de l'article ler., seront punies d'un emprisonnement de trois mois à deux ans et d'une amende de cent francs à mille francs, soit cumulativement, soit séparément.

"Art. 4. S'il existe des circonstances atténuantes, les peines d'emprisonnement et d'amende pourront être réduites à celles de police."

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