Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century: The True Mirror of a Phenomenal Era / A volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress

by James P. Boyd

THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN THE ANIMAL WORLD
By D. E. SALMON, M.D.,
Chief of Bureau of Animal Industry, U. S. Agricultural Department.

I. OF ANIMAL DISEASES.

The wars of Napoleon, which in the early years of the nineteenth century so seriously affected the governments and institutions of Europe, had an equally marked influence upon the development of the animal industry in the countries that were brought within the sphere of the military operations. This chapter of the history of that period appears to have been neglected by writers who have industriously delved into details of subjects of far less interest and importance. Enough has been chronicled by various historians, however, to show that in many cases those engaged in successful operations for improving the breeds of domesticated animals were forced to abandon the work to which they had devoted their lives, and for which long study and experience had specially fitted them, and to become units in the vast armies which were organized only to melt away in the bloody and disastrous campaigns of that epoch. But it was not the men alone that were taken. The best horses were seized for the use of the officers and the cavalry, for the artillery and the transportation trains. The sheep and swine were slaughtered for the subsistence of the armies, and the cattle were driven off for the same purpose. Neither the choicest flocks and herds nor the most magnificent individuals produced by the breeder’s art escaped. The fruits of many years of patient effort in selection and in guiding the forces of heredity were blotted out; the animals left were few and inferior. To crown all these disasters, the most deadly forms of contagion were gathered from their hiding places with the animals that were seized, the plagues which these caused were propagated among the vast aggregation of beasts that were required for the service of the armies, and, finally, they were disseminated throughout all sections to which these armies penetrated.

The agriculturists of Great Britain, thanks to the isolation due to the considerable expanse of water which separates their territory from the mainland, escaped not only the invasions of armed and destructive hosts, but also the pestilences which accompanied them. While, therefore, the farmers of the continent were struggling to save a few of their remaining animals from the ravages of glanders, rinderpest, foot-and-mouth disease, pleuro-pneumonia, and other plagues, those of the British Isles were perfecting the work of their ancestors without molestation. These circumstances, lost sight of by many, explain to a certain extent the apparently marvelous success of the British husbandmen in developing so many breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, and swine to the wonderful perfection which we see at the end of the nineteenth century. The favorable climate, together with the abundant and nutritious herbage, have undoubtedly been factors in the production of the British breeds, but the power and opportunity to select the best animals and retain these for breeding purposes must also have had great influence.

The effect of contagious diseases in retarding the development of animal life may be appreciated from the estimate, carefully made, that in the closing years of the eighteenth century the cattle plague (rinderpest) alone destroyed in Europe two hundred million head of cattle, valued at seven billions of dollars. During the first half of the nineteenth century, cattle plague, pleuro-pneumonia, and foot-and-mouth disease were particularly disastrous to the animal industry of the Continent of Europe, and unquestionably, also, throughout Asia, which appears to have been the original habitat of these plagues. During the last third of this century the development of veterinary science, together with the enactment of sanitary legislation and the enforcement of intelligent measures of repression, have practically eradicated the cattle plague from the countries of Europe, and we have only to note, as important, its invasion of Great Britain in 1865, which led to the adoption of the present most excellent sanitary organization, and the extensive outbreak on the continent following the Franco-Prussian war. During the last six years this plague has swept over large sections of the African continent, destroying nearly every bovine animal in the regions first invaded, and had it not been for the fortunate and timely discovery of a successful method of preventive inoculation, the cattle industry would have been absolutely annihilated.

Pleuro-pneumonia, almost equally destructive with cattle plague and much more persistent, was widely disseminated over the continent of Europe during the seventeenth century, and reached England about 1840. Many years were lost in futile contentions over the subject of contagion, and it was not until the last twenty years that vigorous measures for its extermination were enforced. In the meantime the contagion had been carried to Australia and South Africa, where it has since remained domiciled, a constant source of loss to the cattle growers. The losses from this disease in Europe are now comparatively unimportant, but in the countries of Asia and Africa, and in Australia, it is still a great incubus. Foot-and-mouth disease, less fatal in its effects than the other maladies mentioned, appears to be more difficult to control, and, in the closing years of the century, we find it prevailing extensively over the principal countries of Continental Europe.

The diseases which have most seriously affected the development of other species of animals are the glanders of horses, the variola of sheep (sheep-pox), and the three diseases of swine known in Europe as erysipelas, swine pest, and swine plague. These have been extremely prevalent and fatal in many parts of Europe. Glanders, swine pest, and swine plague have been brought to the American continent, and have been even more destructive here than in their ancient habitat.

The diseases which at present are regarded as most serious attracted but little attention at the beginning of the century, or were unknown. Tuberculosis has now become the great scourge of dairy cows and other highly bred cattle, ruining many of the best herds and threatening the health of the consumers of milk, if not also of beef. Texas fever, a disease of cattle first studied in the United States, but now known to be widely disseminated over the South American, African, and Australian continents, has during late years retarded operations for improving and increasing the stock of cattle, and has seriously restricted the marketing of animals from the infected districts.