26G Seventeenth Annual Report of the 



RECENT HISTORY 



From the middle I" the end of the eighteenth century, central 

 Europe generally was a hotbed of aphthous fever infection, largely 

 due to the frequenl and persistent wars. The pest had invaded the 

 great forest preserves, such as Schwartz-Wald, where the deer, wild 

 boar and other susceptible feral ruminants and porcine animals, 

 mingling herd with herd at frequent intervals, and the successive 

 birth of new and susceptible offspring, kept up a constant suc- 

 cession of infections that have kept the disease in existence down 

 to the present time. All of central Europe was, therefore, kept 

 in constant danger of the advent of the contagion, and war or active 

 trade became the occasion of more or less widespread extensions. 

 Continental Europe has, accordingly, never been quite free from 

 aphthous fever for any length of time even in fenced agricultural 

 districts. 



In contrast with this, Great Britain, which had suffered ex- 

 tensively in the first half of the eighteenth century, stamped out 

 the disease and remained absolutely free until near the middle of 

 the nineteenth century, when, in 1839, cattle landed from the 

 continent communicated the affection to native stock, and it spread 

 rapidly over nearly the whole island, sparing only such districts 

 as breed their own cattle and sheep and never introduce any from 

 outside. With the activity of the commerce in live stock and the 

 increasing rapidity of modern railway transit, this invasion pre- 

 vailed until 1886. Later invasions occurred in 1892, in 1894, 

 and once more in 1900, but in each case the disease was vigor- 

 ously stamped out. 



Like rinderpest, which has an equally short period of initial 

 latency (incubation), it has failed to gain a footing in Australia. 

 Once only, in L872, has the infection been landed at Melbourne, 

 Victoria, where it was promptly stamped out by the slaughter of 

 the two herds in which the contagion had gained a footing. Tas- 

 mania and New Zealand have entirely escaped. On the contrary, 

 lung plague, having an incubation of 14 to 100 days in different 

 cases, outlived the long voyage and planted and extended itself 

 disastrously in Australia. 



With a shorter sea voyage, aphthous fever reached Argentina 

 from Europe in 1870, and there extended itself widely and injuri- 



