On the cattle plague Part 6

1st. That the contagious typhus in cattle which is known to be permanent in the southeast of Europe, actually existed there during the month of June, 1865; 2nd, That some of the horned cattle, fed and reared in that part of Europe, were transported to England, after having crossed through Russia from south to north, in order to avoid pa.s.sing through Germany.

As for the first of these facts, it is admitted and received, as might easily be proved by reproducing the speeches and addresses delivered by the veterinary doctors at the Congress now being held at Vienna, and at which were present the men whose experience of this cattle distemper gives them the highest authority--Hertwig, Jessen, Roll, Siegmund, Gerlach, &c.

The contagious typhus of horned cattle is so fully in the epizootic state in those countries which are washed by the Black Sea, that it was enough for the veterinarians present at the Congress to manifest a desire to see cattle afflicted with this disease, for the opportunity so to do to be immediately afforded them.[D]

Thus, then, the fact is undeniable, the contagious typhus was raging, in June, 1865, in Hungary and Russia, as it rages there at all times.

As for the conveyance of cattle from those countries into England, the fact is no less certain and a.s.sured. It is well known that a convoy of 300 heads of cattle, proceeding from the pasture-grounds of Hungary and Austria, was transported into Finland by rail, and afterwards s.h.i.+pped at Revel for England. Thanks to the rapid locomotion by steam, the migration of these cattle had lasted but ten days--two days for the transport by land, and eight days for the pa.s.sage by sea, through the tortuous line of the Baltic; but this was sufficient length of time for the incubation to be produced, even supposing the animals to have looked sound when their transit began.

Moreover, it is indubitable that the markets of this immeasurable London have for many years been supplied with horned cattle from every country: from France, Holland, Belgium, Podolia, Poland, Prussia, Austria, Hungary, and Russia.

Thus, the Islington Market (the fact is a.s.sured) had received horned cattle imported from the countries where typhus is known to be permanent. Were these cattle thus imported affected with the typhus?

This fact likewise is as certain as the other, since two of the foreign cows thus imported, were the first to fall sick, and to die of this typhus.

But if the contagious typhus of horned cattle rages permanently on the banks of the streams which discharge themselves into the Black Sea, and if the beasts reared in those countries have long been transported to England and other countries, how, it will be asked, is it that the disease has not broken out more frequently, for it has never been seen in Great Britain, at least, during the former part of the nineteenth century?

This question is not devoid of a certain degree of importance, and deserves to fix our attention for a moment.

Now the conditions in which the animals were exhibited in 1863 and 1864 were precisely the same as those of 1865, before the outbreak of the disease; and yet the contagion has been possible in 1865, whilst it was not so in 1863.

We do not presume to explain the mysterious phenomena which govern the development of epidemics and epizootics; but it seems to us not altogether impossible to give a rational and satisfactory elucidation of the facts.

In general, in _epizootics_, and I might even say in some particular epidemics--in that of the typhus, for instance--three connected and inseparable facts form the condition _sine qua non_, of the generation of the disease. First, a focus for producing the virus; secondly, for the most part a favourable soil, and a special predisposition amongst animals to receive and propagate it; thirdly, what is called an epidemic or epizootic genius--that is to say, a particular state of the atmospheric elements, or the air, which hitherto has escaped our a.n.a.lyses, and whose morbific properties vary in their degrees of intensity. Thus the epizootic genius of 1711, the terrible one of 1750, and the one which now diffuses its contagious miasma, have differed in some of their virulent conditions.

However that may be, it will be sufficient to glance back at the past to a.s.sure ourselves that, in general, epizootics have been coincident with some violent change of season, such as extreme droughts, or superabundant rains; that is to say, when the cattle, disturbed in the physiological conditions of their health, have become favourable to the incubation of the miasmatic leaven scattered through the air, or else when these animals were living under irregular conditions, and had to endure unwonted fatigues and privations, as in the folds of campaigning armies, for instance.

These epizootics have appeared to depend not only on the state of the soil and of the health of the cattle, but also (we repeat it designedly) on an element no less indispensable to the propagation of the disease--a special state of the air, which favours the development and preservation of typhic miasma: for sometimes a sudden change of temperature has proved sufficient to stop the rampant progress of the contagion, the other conditions remaining unaltered.

These relations of cause and effect between the contagious principle, the predisposition of the animals, and the state of the atmosphere, evidently are subject to some exceptions; but we must allow that in the present epizootic they are absolutely and completely applicable. For, in truth, the years 1864 and 1865 have been distinguished, if not by the persistency of a high rate of temperature not often witnessed, at least by an excessive drought during the months which are both hot and rainy; and this has happened in the various countries of Europe, thereby producing a falling off in the pasture and fodder both as respects their quant.i.ty and quality.

As to England, a country usually cold and damp, but renowned for its s.p.a.cious green fields and meadows, it has suffered more than any other country from these unfavourable conditions, and their destructive influence on the gra.s.s and corn; the herds having found a great reduction of food where formerly they met with abundance. Everybody has seen, as we have ourselves, large herds of cattle, wandering in amazement from field to field, and seeking for something to browse on a parched and arid soil. A supplementary provision of corn, roots, malt, and the grounds of the beer vat or spirit barrel, no doubt served to mitigate the sad effects of these privations on the health of cattle; but in spite of all that could be done, their blood became impoverished, their strength and vital resistance sank, and (like the animals which we transferred at will into a soil more favourable to the spread of parasitic diseases), they afforded last June, as they do now, an unusual predisposition to suffer and transform the morbific principles of typhus, which in all probability they would have been proof against at any other time. We may very fairly infer this much, for we must of necessity believe that the regular importation of cattle from those countries which are considered as the permanent focus of typhus, has from time to time transported the miasmatic germs of this malady into England, although the virus did not take effect on British cattle at those periods, for want of one or other of the conditions necessary to its generation and development.

We may likewise infer, and a watchful appreciation of the facts contained in the veterinary medical journals would show that this opinion is not unfounded, that the special disease which const.i.tutes this typhus (similar in that respect to epidemic diseases), may develop itself in one beast by accident, spontaneously, sporadically--that is to say, without immediate contagion; in a word, _apart from those epizootic conditions which alone render its propagation possible_. To be brief, we think that an isolated case of cattle typhus may by chance be detected, when there is no epizootia prevailing to account for it, just as we occasionally meet with cases of typhus or cholera among men during seasons absolutely free from these epidemics. It would not, therefore, appear to us altogether impossible, that under the influence of very special conditions, the contagious typhus of the ox might have its birth in England; and this would favour the theory of those reasoners who maintain that this typhus met with the first causes, and the origin of its development, in the stalls and cowsheds of London. But such has not been the cause of cattle typhus in the epizootia which we see at present.

No doubt some animals suffered great privations, but, whatever alteration their health may have sustained, all this is nothing to be compared to the sufferings endured by the cattle in the steppes under the influence of deleterious conditions of the most exceptional character, which do, indeed, give birth to this typhus, and which we have already described.

No, certainly not! _Nothing authorizes us to believe that the typhus now under our observation was bred and born, at first, within the stalls and cowsheds of London._ It was most a.s.suredly imported. But it is true, nevertheless, that this cruel scourge found the horned cattle of England predisposed to receive it, and it likewise met with atmospheric conditions favourable to its subsequent diffusion; in a word, it met with the epizootic genius proper for the generation and propagation of the typhus miasma.

It is thus that we may account for and reconcile the two contending theories, one of which refers the cause of this typhus to foreign importation, whilst the other insists that it originated in the filthy and half-ventilated cowsheds of the metropolis.

But if this typhus could not spring up spontaneously out of the bovine race of England, it must be confessed that, independently of the general predisposition due to a great and protracted drought, it found in the sickening sheds of the metropolitan and country cattle the most favourable conditions for its incubation and subsequent diffusion.

It would, indeed, be difficult to conceive of anything more directly adverse to the hygienic laws of health in cattle than the stalls and sheds dotted over the densely populated districts of London. Most of these pent-up cribs are situated in narrow lanes and yards, in filthy streets and blind alleys; and within these close, hot, and steaming receptacles the miserable cows, pressed against each other, without ever moving a limb, waste away and become phthisical in a very short s.p.a.ce of time. We may readily imagine what a prey to the contagion must be afforded by these animals, already more or less ailing, some of which are fed in a great measure on malt, so sour and acrid that the very smell of it is intolerable. The milk from these cows is, moreover, of so wretched a quality, that in a cowhouse containing 48 of these poor creatures, at Kensington, I found only one, the milk of which exhibited the taste and quality fit for a sick child, for whom I ordered a milk diet.

It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that the present epizootia, during this late tropical season[E] especially, should have met with all the conditions most conducive to its development and propagation.

When the cattle distemper first broke out, the graziers, not suspecting its gravity, attempted to treat the animals themselves, but soon afterwards perceiving the fruitlessness of all their remedial measures, they felt that the best thing they could do was to turn their sick beasts to whatever account they could, by driving them to market or to the slaughter-houses, an expedient which they were the more disposed to adopt, inasmuch as the diseased cows had ceased to give milk. And then, the removal of these animals, in various stages of the disorder, became the most rapid means of disseminating the contagion, which, had it been concentrated and pent-up at first within its narrow focus, would otherwise have spread with less fearful havoc.[F]

In the meanwhile the sick cows being commingled with thousands of heads of cattle exposed for sale at the different markets, communicated far and wide the principle of the disease; and as a certain number of these animals remaining unsold were driven back to the farms, into stalls until then removed from every cause of contagion, they introduced among their sound companions the fatal germs of the distemper; and as, again, this effectual means of propagating the evil was repeated several times in the same week, the consequence was that, by the end of July--a little more than a month after the outbreak--the whole of the south of England was in some sort contaminated. Thence the contagion extended to the north of the kingdom, and pa.s.sed into Scotland; so that, at present, the cattle-typhus has spread its ramifications over a great number of the counties of Great Britain.[G]

In the first instance, the contagion spread from animal to animal by means of an infecting influence in some degree direct, among cattle sheltered beneath the same roof, or collected in swarms within the same markets. But very soon the air itself was impregnated and polluted by the vaporization and diffusion of the typhic miasma; and herds of cattle which had no contact, either direct or indirect, with infected animals, were seen to be tainted with the distemper. Whether this contamination was produced by the pa.s.sage of attainted cattle along the public roads (having fields on the right and left), or otherwise, nothing but an absolute isolation, an utter impossibility of contact, appeared to offer a perfect immunity against the spread of the evil.

The miasma, condensed by the fogs and transported in all directions by the winds, now began to overleap every natural or artificial barrier, and the favoured herds, ruminating at their ease in the manorial farms of the wealthy patricians, in their well-kept parks and amid every luxury, were suddenly smitten with an evil which in their case seemed an anomaly. In such peaceful homes these innocent creatures were tended by intelligent and benevolent hands, which understood and felt for their frail const.i.tutions; food of the best quality was lavishly supplied to them, and whatever they could wish for lay around them in abundance; richly reared, they had themselves become so many ornaments within these scenes of beauty, and all men thought that here, at least, were plots of rural ground which the genius of epizootia would not invade, and in which the healthy herds were invulnerable to contagion.

It was under these circ.u.mstances that the fine farms of Earl Granville, at Golder's Green, skirting the Finchley Road,[H] containing as many as 130 milch cows, were suddenly and fiercely attacked amidst their seeming immunity, and struck down in great numbers.

"When I left England a month ago," said the n.o.ble lord, "there were about 130 milch cows in four sheds; in the two largest and best managed I found only one cow yesterday, September 4th."

The park of Holly Lodge,[I] which is partly bounded by the main road along which pa.s.s and repa.s.s files of cattle going to and coming from the markets, was visited by the same unsparing scourge. Now certainly, the n.o.ble and beneficent lady of the manor, who secured to her cattle every attention, and who, confiding in the resources of medical science, attempted every means to save these stricken creatures doomed to an inevitable death; she whose enlightened mind, equally open to the claims of science as to those of misfortune, desired that experiments should be made which might tend to throw any light on this devastating malady; she, at any rate, one would think, might have escaped the common lot without exciting wonder or envy at the privilege which she enjoyed. But this fell and sweeping epizootia, inexorable in its lat.i.tudinarian march, entered those shady bounds, and decimated those orderly sheds with the same impartiality as it did that of the poor man, Cutting, whose whole fortune was stored up in the two milch cows whose death he had to deplore.

This epizootia threatens to invade, one by one, all the European States, like the awful scourge of 1750, to which we have already drawn attention. For even now Holland and Belgium[J] have been smitten; and the alarm it has excited has for a time superseded the panic which the stealthy advance of the cholera to the west had kindled. Some imagine that it might have been kept out of Great Britain, or have been checked in its outbreak. But, in spite of all the safest precautions and the soundest measures of preparation, it would most likely have baffled human skill, and neither been held aloof nor stifled in its focus. But how painful it is, to have to write and to think that ignorance, carelessness, revolting cupidity, and the most wanton violation of the laws, have all contributed to extend the evil, with the foulest premeditation and the blindest disregard!

To feel one's self a stranger in a country, and to be able to rejoice at one's connexions with it, and at the same time to be obliged to give publicity to certain truths distasteful to those to whom they are told, is a most painful task. But, as it would be to swerve from that duty and loyalty which the national interests as well as those of science impose upon a writer, not to speak out with impartial justice in a matter of so vital an importance, we beg permission to consider, without reserve, this delicate question:--the causes which have contributed to propagate the complaint.

V.

England, so long spared by that wasting scourge, which had so often extended its ravages over France and other kingdoms during the last sixty years, was taken by surprise; and the regulations and laws necessary to stifle without delay the distemper in its focus--that is to say, in the metropolis--not being in readiness, the outbreak of the disease found her helpless and unarmed.

On the other hand, the organic forms of the English Government and munic.i.p.al bodies, the reserve of the Cabinet during the vacation, the limited power of the Lord Mayor and his civic counsellors, the subdivision of London into parishes and vestries, as in the good times of the middle ages, the loose scattering of the shambles and meat markets through the many streets of the huge town, the right a.s.serted by each man to be absolutely independent and free, the sanct.i.ty of the Englishman's home, &c., &c., all concurred to let loose and propagate the contagion, instead of keeping it within bounds.

Indeed, whilst the competent authorities, with all the energy which could be expected of them on so grave a matter, were meeting and discussing the best measures to be taken, and the interesting debates at the Mansion-house were throwing the first light upon the question, the insidious malady pursued its destructive progress, diffusing new terror and alarm. When at length the Privy Council issued their orders, prescribing the public declaration of sick cattle, and that no affected beast was to be conveyed either by rail or by s.h.i.+p, whilst all the necessary means of purification and disinfection were to be employed, &c., it was unfortunately too late, the dreadful calamity having taken root and multiplied its stem like the upas-tree.

What a field for reflection there is in these cases, which originating with the imperfect state of the laws and inst.i.tutions, have fostered and encouraged the disease! But this is a subject which it would not behove us to discuss, and we prefer to show by the notes which will be found appended to the end of this work, and which are produced as attesting doc.u.ments, that cattle proprietors, by their own confession, too often sacrifice the interests of the public to their own private advantage.[K]

Nor have we been able to partic.i.p.ate in the thoughts and reflections of so many sensible and judicious persons, on the impotence and dilatoriness of the public authorities, and also, let us say, on the inadequate pecuniary means proposed by a people so lavish of its wealth when useful and great undertakings are designed, without paying a natural tribute of regret, to the memory of a Prince who took so deep an interest in the progress of agriculture, and who, had he still been living, would have known how to direct with a firm and steady hand, the right measures to be taken amidst so many intricacies and embarra.s.sments.

Sometimes allusion has been made to France in the speeches delivered at these meetings, presided over by that active magistrate, the Lord Mayor.

In the course of these remarks the speakers have praised and held up to admiration the advantages of her system of centralization, the decrees of her sanitary police, and the promptness with which she executes the measures which the public interests require. That is true. France is certainly in a state to resist the scourge with very effectual means to arrest its progress; but if in this matter, as in some others, she have acquired a superiority, it has only been by an experience dearly purchased, these epizootics having returned more than once to destroy her flocks and herds. Politically, the same might be said of her revolutions, those great moral epidemics.

An orator, a writer, went so far as to say, in one of his numerous letters, the one dated the 24th of August: "I regret to say some of our neighbours laugh at our expense."[L]

No, your neighbours will not laugh at your misfortunes. They sympathize at present both in your joys and sorrows, and if I have taken up my pen on this occasion, it has only been because I could not look with indifference on your too just anxieties, when I flattered myself that I might write some useful pages to mitigate and relieve them.

As most newspaper readers are aware,[M] and as everybody may easily ascertain, the diseased cattle, in spite of reiterated orders to destroy them immediately, were, nevertheless, driven to the markets to be sold for what could be got for them; or when their tainted condition was too glaring they were at once sent off to the private shambles, the owners of which, in order to disguise the accusatory proof of the misdemeanor, hastened to sell the body of the animal. It would be quite impossible to mention all the violations of the law, which every day continue to fill the columns of the public journals. One graceless wretch, who deserved to be hanged for it, if his ignorance do not excuse him, was so infamous as to introduce a sick cow into a shed not yet attainted, in his criminal desire of propagating the disease there.[N]

Thus, then, independently of the causes inherent to the typhus itself, which served of necessity to diffuse it, other causes proceeding from the defective state of the law, and the perfidy of individuals, have contributed to its dissemination. And yet the Government circulars, the newspapers, and the reports of veterinary doctors have made known that the slightest omissions and inattentions were serious--that the want of ventilation and cleanliness in the stables, the overcrowding of the cattle, and their abiding near their own droppings, or dung-heaps--that the keeping of dead bodies close to farms, cowsheds, enclosed grounds, and fields--that the hasty and imperfect burial of cattle--that the collection and transit of their fragments, bones, horns, and skins--that the driving on the public roads of any animal either tainted itself, or having lived among those that were sick--that the clothes of persons and stable utensils, soiled with putrid liquids--that all these, and similar causes, were capable of propagating or aggravating the disease.

But whilst we must loudly condemn the voluntary misdeeds of those who drove their sick cattle to market, it must likewise be allowed that, to conform one's self rigidly to the given injunctions, was sometimes attended with serious embarra.s.sments. How great, indeed, must have been the perplexity of any grazier who, being the owner, for instance, of forty head of cattle, and having seen ten of them perish under his eyes, without knowing where to dispose of them, was threatened with the loss of the remaining thirty within a few days! How could he calmly and patiently resign himself to suffer so large a quant.i.ty of animal matter to acc.u.mulate and putrefy around him, when, suddenly ruined, and dest.i.tute of every resource, the authorities held back instead of coming to his a.s.sistance.

The prime cause of all the transgressions committed in despite of the Privy Council's orders, may therefore be referred in part to the want of compensation to be granted to the owners of infected cattle. It all might be almost reduced to a question of money. For let us suppose for a moment, that inspectors entrusted with adequate powers, had been authorized, after a close examination, to point out the tainted cattle; to fix a moderate price on them by way of compensation; to have them slaughtered, carried away, and immediately buried, would not such a course have diminished the generation of contagious miasma in a considerable proportion?

Moreover, some cattle-breeders and farmers exposed themselves to the imposition of fines and penalties without any evil designs; for when they drove their beasts to market they were only in the stage of incubation, at the preliminary period, when it is really no easy task to distinguish the distemper. The following fact will exemplify this.

At each market, in spite of continual warnings, the inspectors pick out and despatch to the slaughter-houses a certain number of sick cattle, not only those affected with typhus, but with other disorders. One cannot help wondering, on seeing the poor, lean, sickly condition of some of these creatures, how their owners could have been so mad as to expose them for sale; but in their number there are a few which, although sick, appear in good health to the common observer.

About a fortnight ago, during one of our visits to the great Metropolitan Market, Mr. Tegg, the veterinary inspector, whose intelligence and earnestness are quite equal to the very difficult charge with which he is entrusted, ordered to be seized and removed to a secluded fold near the slaughter-houses, a dozen diseased animals. When once these cattle had been thus collected in a body, it was easy to submit them to a still closer examination. Most of these beasts, adult cows and oxen, were lean, panting, feverish, dispirited, and remained motionless where they stood. But among them was a cow, with a brisk and lively look, a quick open eye, which watched us with anxiety, and fled at our approach every time we pa.s.sed by her. The turn came for this cow to be examined. Mr. Tegg, strong and handy--as every good veterinary doctor should be--seized hold of one of her horns, but he was quickly shaken off; other persons came up to a.s.sist him; the fiery animal was suddenly seized by both horns, by the nostrils, and the tail; but so strong and spirited was the animal, that she defended herself with advantage against all her adversaries, and once more shook herself free.