Conditions permitting and forbidding Immunization. Immunization is permissible or commendable in all cases in which lung plague is already widely spread in a land destitute of fences and in which cattle roam at large, and herd mingles freely with herd. Here the extension of the disease is inevitable and continuous and effective measures for extinction are impossible. It is permissible where the plague is widely spread among cultivated and fenced farms, but where no authoritative measures are in force for its extinction. In such case, with the Willem’s system the inoculated herd should be kept thoroughly secluded in premises or well fenced pastures, apart from any highway, and not adjoining any other cattle pasture.
When on the other hand official measures are in force for the extinction of lung plague, every form of immunization based on the production of the pathogenic germ in the living body of the bovine, or even in vitro, is to be unqualifiedly condemned. The risk of the escape of the infection through subtle, unsuspected channels is too great to allow of its reproduction in any form. By restriction of cattle movement, slaughter and disinfection, extinction of lung plague is easy and certain, but, whatever may be true of an individual herd, no country has ever permanently extinguished lung plague infection, when the virus was systematically multiplied for uses in inoculation.
CATTLE PLAGUE.
Synonyms. Definition: infectious fever of polygastrics, with sudden onset, violent progress, high mortality, congestions of mucosæ, petechiæ, concretions on buccal and vulvar mucosæ and on skin, erosions of gastro-intestinal mucosæ, and pulmonary interlobular emphysema. Historic notes: ancient—China, Hindoostan, Steppes; in middle ages—Europe, Britain; recent—Europe, England (1714 and 1740), Scotland (1770), Central Europe (1796–1816), Southern Europe (1827), Germany (1830–1), Egypt (1841), Britain (1865), France (1870–1), S. Africa (1881), Abyssinia (1890), Japan (1892), The Phillipines (1898–9). Animals susceptible: ruminants, peccary, (swine?). Bacteriology: minute corpuscles in cell nucleus (Semmer, etc.), which are held back by Berkefeld and Chamberland filter. Accessory causes: such as favor preservation, multiplication and diffusion of germ. Susceptibility varies with previous exposure of the race. Immunity after one attack. All liquids and secretions of the sick are virulent; also manure, hay, straw, dust, stables, troughs, cars, boats, loading banks, yards, milk, flesh, fat, sausage cases, hairs, horn, hoofs, wool, bristles, hides, bones, halters, harness, shafts, poles, goads, boots, clothes, feet (animals), wheels, runners, vermin, wild animals. Virulence lost in drying. Manure preserves for weeks. Lost at zero, and at 131° F. Lesions: congestion, petechiæ, hæmorrhages and erosions on fourth stomach, small intestine, rectum, vagina and mouth, emaciation, sunken eyes, diarrhœa, wart-like epidermic elevations, concretions on mouth; conical papillæ dark, like port wine; petechiæ and extravasations in subderma and submucosa; swollen intestinal glands; spleen normal; liver, pale, soft; kidneys swollen, congested, petechiated, softened; lungs with spots of congestion and extravasation and emphysema: petechiæ on heart and pericardium: blood has excess of fibrine and leucocytes, black. Incubation 2 to 9 days. Symptoms; hyperthermia (104° to 108° F.), white epithelial concretions on gums, followed by abrasions, congestion of visible mucosæ, weariness, debility, thirst, constipation followed by diarrhœa, tender loins, drooping head and ears, weeping eyes, grinding teeth, rapid pulse, expiration with arrest and click, suppression of milk, relaxed sphincters. May become aggressive or soporific. Diagnosis: by rapid and deadly progress, and manifest infection; from malignant catarrh by the active spread, numbers attacked, concretions on mouth, and known exposure; from thrush by the high fever, contagion to old as well as young, and severe abdominal symptoms; from aphthous fever by the high temperature, the absence of distinct vesicles on mouth, teats and feet, by the comparative immunity of swine, and by its high mortality; from dysentery, by the early hyperthermia, the concretions in the mouth, by rapid general extension irrespective of filth and crowding, and by the implication of stomachs and small intestines, rather than the large; from gastro-enteritis, due to chemical irritants, by the lack of such manifest cause, and its rapid progress from herd to herd; from anthrax, by its rapid spread beyond an anthrax locality, the buccal and skin concretions and desquamations, by the insusceptibility of horse, dog, and rodent, by the absence of splenic enlargement or incoagulable blood. In sheep: mortality in Steppes, 30 to 50 per cent.; in new countries 90 to 95 per cent. Treatment: to be condemned where its permanence is not accepted. Serum-therapy: blood serum of immunized animal subcutem. Prevention by immunization: mixture of virus and bile; inject with highly immunized and defibrinated blood, and expose to the sick, only admissible where extinction is despaired of. Exclusion: exclude all ruminants and their products which come from suspected lands, or admit on certificate and quarantine, or for slaughter only. Extinctions: Trace and kill all ruminants that come in proximity to every infected animal, or to any place or thing where it has been, disinfect thoroughly the carcasses, products, places and things, register all ruminants around a wide area of possible infection, make necropsy in every case of death, appraise and sacrifice any herd showing the infection. Each seaboard state should provide for instant action by the Federal Government. Question of extinction in the Philippines.
Synonyms. Pestis Bovina, Rinderpest, Magenseuche, Viehpest, Viehseuche, Pockenseuche (German). Pest Bovine, Typhus Contagieuse, Typhus du gros Betail (French). Tifo Bovino (Italian). Dzuma (Polish). Tchouma Reina (Russian). Low peng (belly sickness, China). Pushima (Hind., Burma.).
Definition. A contagious fever of polygastric mammals (bovine, ovine, caprine, cervine, exceptionally porcine), characterized by sudden invasion, rapid advance, hyperthermia, great constitutional disorder, congestion and blood extravasations of the mucosæ generally, but especially of the gastric and intestinal, epithelial and epidermic hypertrophy in the form of white concretions or warty-like masses on the mouth, (vulva), and skin, followed by erosions, by pulmonary, interlobular emphysema, by a catching, arrested inspiration, followed by an expiratory moan, and by an early and very high mortality.
Historic Notes. As the most rapidly developing and deadly of the cattle plagues, this attracted the greatest attention of people in earlier times, and thus its invasions and ravages can be more satisfactorily identified, than those of the tardier and somewhat less deadly lung plague which usually followed in its wake.
Sanctus Severus and Vegetius Renatus indicate its advent into Western Asia on the borders of the Caspian and Black Seas, coincident with the irruption of the Mongols in the first Christian century. It still prevails in China and adjoining countries, including Hindoostan, and since that date the Steppes near the Black and Caspian Seas have been looked on as the perennial home of the plague. Before 376, A. D., the chronicles of epizoötics in Europe suggest anthrax affections which prevailed widely in man and beast, and since that time the special plagues of cattle come into prominence. At this date the Huns began a great onward movement from the region of the Caspian and Black seas into Dacia (Hungary), Northern Italy, Germany and Gaul, and this was the occasion for a general diffusion of Rinderpest over these countries.
After this date cattle plague spread widely on the occasion of any great European war in which the eastern nations were involved or which was so general or continued as to draw upon Eastern Europe for the supply of the commisariat parks. One great epizoötic culminated in 810 after the wars of Charlemagne; one occurred in 820 in connection with invasion of Hungary by the Franco-German army; one in 1223 to 1225 laid waste Central Europe and is said to have reached Great Britain; in 1233–4 it again gained a wide extension following the invasion by hosts of Mongols from Siberia; great extensions are recorded in Italy in 1616 and 1625 during the 30 years’ war; in 1709 Charles XII wintered with his army in the Ukraine and his return was followed by the most disastrous mortality ever seen in Europe and which lasted from 1710 to 1717. This reached England in 1714 and was there stamped out by killing and burning the sick, disinfecting the buildings and closing up the infected pastures. Paulet claims that Europe lost 1,500,000 head of cattle in the first three years of this invasion. It continued more or less prevalent in the eastern countries of Europe, and, following the course of war, entered Italy in 1735, and extended westward. Again in 1740 in connection with the war of the Austrian Succession it extended westward invading the Western Countries from France to Denmark inclusive, and once more extended into England, where it prevailed until 1756 and caused an unprecedented destruction. It was finally stamped out as on the previous invasion. During this invasion Europe lost 3,000,000 head of cattle (Delafond). In 1770 another invasion of Great Britain occurred through the landing of infected Dutch hay at Portsoy, N. B., but this was quickly suppressed by the destruction of every bovine animal in the infected herds, and the thorough disinfection of premises, supplemented by a daily scrutiny of all cattle within a radius of 18 miles. In the second half of the 18th century cattle plague prevailed more or less generally in all Continental Europe, except Norway, Sweden and the Spanish peninsula, into which no cattle were imported, and carried off 200,000,000 head of cattle (Freidberger and Fröhner). In 1796 to 1816 the cattle plague followed the marches and countermarches of the various armies in connection with the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars, causing unheard of losses throughout Europe. In 1827 it spread widely in connection with the war of independence in Greece, and again in 1830–1 a wide extension occurred in connection with the Polish revolution. In 1844 Russia lost 1,000,000 head of cattle. In 1841 a shipment of Roumanian and Anatolian cattle to Alexandria, Egypt, carried the plague and in two years upwards of 350,000 head of Egyptian cattle perished, only a few being left. From this date the great development of manufactures in the Western European nations, and especially in Great Britain, the consequent increasing demand for beef, and the inauguration of rapid transit from Eastern Europe by steamer and rail, introduced an era of the extension of the cattle plague by commerce rather than war, and Röll gives the losses in Austria alone in 1847 to 1864 at 500,000 head. In 1865 a cargo of cattle from Revel on the Baltic, landed the infection at Hull, whence it speedily extended over the entire country, and prevailed for 18 months, but was stamped out by vigorous measures of destruction and disinfection. In all 279,023 head were reported attacked of which 233,629 died or were killed and 40,165 recovered. In 1865 the plague was once more imported into Egypt, this time from the Danubian Principalities. A wide extension took place in the parks of the French and German armies in the war of 1870–1, as many as 43 departments in France having suffered. In 1872 it was imported from Russia into Great Britain but was speedily extirpated, and again in 1877 from Germany when it spread somewhat more widely but was easily suppressed. In 1881 it was introduced into S. Africa in Asiatic cattle during the war in the Transvaal and coming after the long continued prevalence of lung plague it threatened the cattle interests with ruin. In 1890 it reached Abyssinia by cattle sent for the supply of the Italian Army. In 1892 Japan suffered through importation from the main land. The latest extension of cattle plague was in 1898–9 into the Phillipines in the shipments of Asiatic cattle sent for the supply of the American army, and there as elsewhere in unfenced countries it is proving the cause of disastrous losses.
Animals Susceptible. In spite of its name—cattle plague, Rinderpest—this affection is not like lung plague peculiar to bovine animals. Yet bovine animals are by far the most susceptible, by them it is mainly propagated, and upon them comes the greatest mortality. Infection, however, extends to all other ruminants,—sheep, goats, deer, elk, antelopes, gazelles, aurochs, yaks, camels, dromedaries, buffaloes, etc. Swine which show a pouch on the left sac of the stomach show a certain susceptibility, it killed the peccaries in the Jardin des Plants, Paris, and Viseur in France and Pluning in Sumatra, claim to have seen cases in the domestic pig. The horse, dog, rabbit, bird, and man are immune.