n the cattle plague: or, Contagious typhus in horned cattle. Its history, origin, description, and treatment
Madam,
The numerous services which you have rendered, and the interest you have shown in the calamitous epizootic which at this moment decimates the noble herds of England, have prompted me to dedicate the following pages to you, satisfied that I am only giving public expression to the homage felt for you by many of your fellow-countrymen.
I have the honour to be, Madam,
PREFACE
Nations, during the successive phases of their evolution on the globe, in which they advance from a state of infancy and barbarism to one of virility and civilization, from civilization to decadence or senility; and from decadence to their final extinction, are liable to numberless calamities.
These calamities are produced by moral causes, and are then called social Revolutions; and in other instances from physical causes, and then they are termed Cataclysms, Epidemics, or Epizootics.
In these crises, the initiative and devotion of individuals, the public administration, and the application of knowledge acquired in the Arts and Sciences, afford collectively an infallible criterion for ascertaining the position which a nation occupies in the scale of civilization, and the value of its religious, social, and political institutions.
Calamities always leave behind them disasters and victims, but they bequeath also a precious legacy. Nations which are called upon for fresh and progressive efforts, find in the experience they have gained a new source of strength and means of future greatness. I am convinced that this will be the case with England; though, helpless for the moment, and unable to stay the Cattle Plague which now ravages her entire extent, she will in future be found better prepared to resist the inroads of such a direful enemy.
No branch of human knowledge has been more rudely tested during the present epizootic than medical science. Many persons have been astounded at its helplessness; but if they had reflected at what a distance medicine has to follow in the wake of the exact sciences by which it is furnished with instruments for prosecuting its researches, – that organic chemistry progresses but slowly, – that the Cattle Plague was entirely unknown to the present generation of medical men in England, – and that the means for its scientific and practical study have been therefore wholly wanting, they would have been less surprised to find that it is as difficult to cure the Cattle Plague as it, is to cure phthisis, cancer, hydrophobia, and the cholera, against which medicine but too often is of little avail.
In times of great national calamity it behoves every one to contribute in proportion to his talents, fortune, or abilities, to alleviate the effects of the common misfortune. The poor man's mite, and the honest intention of the most insignificant, when added to the budget of common efforts, have their relative value; and it is for these reasons that I have published the following monograph on the Cattle Plague.
If it assists in any way to the extinction of the present epizootic, or if it serve to point out the necessity of combining the study of comparative pathology with that of medicine, I shall feel that I have contributed something which may favour my claim to be enrolled among the citizens of England.
This book, as may easily be seen, was originally written in my native language. A few kind and obliging friends – more particularly Mr. Taylor Sinnett, Drs. Clapton and Gervis, of St. Thomas's Hospital, and Mr. Berridge, of the British Museum – have rendered me the greatest assistance in the translation. Without the guidance of such competent auxiliaries I could not have performed my arduous task.
I therefore beg to return to those gentlemen, and to all those who have assisted me on this occasion, my sincerest and most grateful thanks.
INTRODUCTION
Everyone is talking of the Cattle Plague! But why should we borrow this sinister and gloomy denomination from the middle ages and from the people's vocabulary? Is this, then, an unknown and incurable disease? Is this the first time that it has made its appearance on the soil of Great Britain? To judge by the manner in which the diffusion of this complaint has been met, accounted for, explained, and discussed, one might imagine it was so; and yet the mere observation of its causes, its symptoms, and its signs and effects on the bodies of the diseased animals, besides a few references to the medical library, would easily have testified that nature did not wait until the second half of the 19th century to generate a new distemper. No! Nothing new has appeared for a long time in the worlds of space. The cosmic phenomena pursue their perpetual course, and the organic phenomena, à fortiori, do the same. Life, throughout the whole range of the animal kingdom, whatever may be its changes and fluctuations, submits to the fixed and invariable laws which hold dominion over health and disease. Our presumption and ignorance alone can account for the astonishment we manifest, not only when we witness great general calamities, but even when we look upon those simple morbid derangements which organic matter, both animal and vegetable, is continually undergoing on the globe, in the natural progress of destruction and dissolution.
The habit we most of us have contracted of confining our observations to the phenomena which strike our eyes, instead of fixing them on the general causes by which these phenomena have been produced; the forgetfulness of some, in others the want of acquaintance with general and comparative pathology, have in this instance led many conscientious inquirers to misapprehend both the nature and the treatment of the cattle complaint. It is in vain that we have subdivided and classed medical science – in vain that we have arbitrarily instituted a veterinary medicine and a human medicine; nature, in her acts, has no such subtleties. With nature, organic matter is organic matter, life is life; and although it may be true that both organic matter and life become more complex, and continue to rise in perfection till they reach man, it is quite as true that the laws of pathology and physiology are the same in all, and that it is just as difficult to cure the typhus of the ox as that of man. As, therefore, it is because we overlooked these fundamental truths, that the outbreak of the cattle distemper found us unprepared, we must treat the subject with all the gravity which is its due.
Let it not, however, be feared that the special fact of the so-called Cattle Plague will be lost sight of amidst a crowd of scientific generalities. No; collateral reflections, seemingly foreign to the main argument, will concur to elucidate it; and all these rays of light will converge to a common centre, reflecting, we flatter ourselves, some evident facts and practical truths.
This work on the contagious typhus of the ox is divided into four principal parts.
The first part contains the history of this typhus from the remotest times down to the present day. It is divided into several sections.
The second part, which gives the description of the disease, is subdivided into four chapters.
The first chapter treats of general typhus, in order that a perfect understanding may be arrived at as to the name and definition of the particular distemper which affects the ox.
The second relates to the causes and origin of the disease.
The third treats of its symptoms, its progress, &c.
The fourth contains its mode of treatment.
The third part gives some plain instructions for the benefit of farmers, cattle-dealers, and dairymen.
The fourth part gives a development of the scientific means and safeguards to be adopted, in order that this country shall never relapse into that state of helpless panic to which a want of preparation exposed it when the present epizootia began its ravages.
