Rinderpest

RINDERPEST (German for "cattle-plague," which is the English synonym), one of the most contagious, infectious and fatal diseases of oxen ; transmissible to sheep, goats, and other ruminants, both domesticated and wild ; swine are doubtfully affected ; horses, etc., carnivore and man are immune. Rinderpest is a virulent eruptive fever which runs its course so rapidly and attacks such a large percentage of ruminants, when it is intro duced into a country, that from the earliest times it has excited terror and dismay. Endemic throughout Asia it has prevailed ex tensively in south-eastern Russia and neighbouring countries. It appeared in Egypt in 1844 and 1865, Abyssinia in 1890, Japan in 1892, and the Philippines in 1898, and towards the end of the nine teenth century it was carried along the course of the Nile into South Africa involving many parts of the country. Outbreaks occurred in Belgium in 192o and in Western Australia in 1923.

It has been noted that its irruptions into Europe in the earlier centuries of our era always coincided with invasions of barbarous tribes in eastern Europe. One of the earliest recorded irruptions of cattle-plague into western Europe occurred in the 5th century after the invasion of the Huns. Later invasions are recorded, and in several of these Britain was visited—as in 809-10, 986-87, 1223-25, 1513-14, and notably in 1713, 1774, 1799. In 1865 it was imported from Finland into the cattle markets of London and other large provincial towns; it raged for II years, destroying 500,000 cattle. The last outbreak occurred in 1877.

The infective agent belongs to the group of filter passing viruses (q.v.). Under favourable conditions, as in bone marrow, the virus may long remain infective, but generally its virulence is lost after a few days on exposure to sunlight, putrefaction or disinfectants. It is known to exist in all the various secretions and excretions, in the flesh, blood and various organs of the body. Contagion may be direct or indirect, and the disease may be con veyed to healthy cattle by contaminated fodder, litter, water, clothing, pasture, sheds, railway wagons, hides, horns and hoofs. Attendants, cats, dogs, birds, vermin and flies may spread the in fection. Definite symptoms of the disease may not be recognised until the expiration of three to nine days after exposure.

Symptoms.

An exact knowledge of the symptoms and micro scopical appearances of the disease is of the utmost importance, as its extension and consequent ravages can only be arrested through its timely recognition and the immediate adoption of the necessary sanitary measures. Intense fever, diarrhoea or dysen tery, croupous inflammation of the mucous membranes in gen eral, sometimes a cutaneous papular eruption, and great pros tration, mark the course of the disease. Its introduction and mode of propagation can, in many instances, be ascertained only at a late period, and when great loss may already have been sustained. In the majority of cases the examination of the carcass of an ani mal which has died or been purposely killed is the best way to arrive at a correct diagnosis. Indeed, this is practically the only

certain means of definitely deciding upon the presence of the malady.

Among cattle indigenous to the regions in which this malady may be said to be enzootic the symptoms are often comparatively slight, and the mortality not great. So much is this the case that veterinary surgeons who can readily distinguish the disease when it affects the cattle of Western Europe, can only with diffi culty diagnose it in animals from Hungary, Bessarabia, Moldavia, or other countries where it is always more or less prevalent. In these, fever is usually brief, and lassitude and debility are, in some instances, the only marks of the presence of this disorder in animals which may, nevertheless, communicate the disease in its most deadly form to the cattle of other countries.

In the more malignant form the fever runs high, 106° to 107° Fahr., and all the characteristic symptoms are well marked: dullness, sunken eyes, eruption on the skin, discharges from eyes, nose and mouth, shivering fits, difficult breathing, dry harsh cough, miliary eruptions on the gums, accumulation of bran-like exudate within the lips, fetid breath, with certain nervous phe nomena, and dysenteric dejections. Death generally occurs in four or five days, the course of the disorder being more rapid with animals kept in sheds than with those living in the open, and in summer than in winter. The post-mortem appearances are most marked in the digestive canal, and comprise red spots and erosions on the palate, lips, tongue and pharynx ; intense congestion of the lining of the fourth stomach, which in places is covered with a grey or reddish pultaceous deposit, under which the membrane is deeply ulcerated. Similar lesions are seen in the small intestine, caecum and rectum. The membrane lining the air passages is con gested throughout, and the lungs are emphysematous.

Remedial Measures.

Various methods of preventive inocu lation have been elaborated in countries where the disease is endemic. In South Africa the bile method (or the injection of bile obtained from cattle dead of rinderpest), discovered by Koch, in 1896; bile with admixture of glycerine, recommended by Edington; the simultaneous injection of serum and rinder pest blood, introduced by Turner and Kolle in 1897, and repeated injection of fortified serum alone, have been employed, more or less successfully, in conferring immunity. The simultaneous method has been extensively used in many countries, such as in S. Africa, Egypt, India, Turkey, with a large measure of success. It consists in the injection of one c.c. of blood of an animal affected with rinderpest, but free from protozoan and other in fection, into one side of the body and an appropriate amount of hyperimmune serum into the other side. Elsewhere, precaution ary measures consist in legislation regarding importation of ani mals from infected countries. In Great Britain the disease is scheduled under the Diseases of Animals Act. (A. R. S.)