THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE 



125 



19, that they had beea placed with, fell ill with the disease, and 

 tlie whole were forthwith slaughtered. 



"2. At PoiiHchowiiz. — Twenty Podoliauoxen came here on 

 the same occasion, and they within a few days gave indica- 

 tioas of beiii;^ affected. Like the others, also, they had been 

 p\it with other cattle, 49 in number. On the occurrence of 

 the oulbreak the whole were killed, so that not a single head 

 of catile was le t on the estate. The place was likewise sui- 

 rouuded by a military cordon ; but while the disease was 

 going on, a carpenter's apprentice, employed on the estate, 

 escaped the vigilance of the guards, and went to his father's 

 house, whic'.i was distant about two thousand paces. While 

 there he repaired a manger in his father's cow-shed, and also 

 changed the riolhes he had worn at Pouischowitz. The rinder- 

 pest in con'-equence of this broke out among his father's cattle. 

 The whole were thereupon killed, and a military cordon drawn 

 around the premises. It is now ten days since the animals 

 were slaughtered. 



"3. At Sliipsho, four of the Podolian oxen sent here were 

 attacked. Tliey were likewise slaughtered, and the further 

 progress of the disease arrested. The cordon has been raised 

 here four weeks ; the place having been previously disin- 

 fected. 



" 4. At Zawaiz, in the circle of Beuthen, at a totally isolated 

 farm, a case of sudden death occurred to an ox, which the sur- 

 geon reported as hapjiening from rinderpest ; but there is con- 

 siderable doubt as to this opinion being correct. 



" 5. At Wohlau, iu the circle of Pless, close to the frontier 

 of Galicia, and icto which no catt'e had been imported, three 

 cases of the disease occurred, and all at peasants'. These ani- 

 mals had come in coulact with nine others, and all were con- 

 ecquently killed and a mibtary cordon established. In this 

 particular instance it was impossible to trace the cause of 

 the introduction of the disease. 



" These are all the cases of rinderpest which have recently 

 occurred in the provinces of Silesia, and at the present time 

 not a single suspicious case exists, owing to the means which 

 the Government has adopted to arrest its cr.nrse. No lear 

 need be entertained that the disease will extend from Prussia 

 to the neighbouring countries. 



"(Signed) Baron Schleinitz. 



"Privy Councillor to his Majesty the King of Prussia, 



and Upper President of the province of Silesia. 



"Breslau, April 27th, 1857." 



It will not be necessary to comment on this Report 

 in this place, ajid more particularly as we shall have 

 hereafter to adduce some remarkable proofs of the con- 

 lagious nature of the rinderpest. It is right, however, 

 as several parts of Prussia have experienced during the 

 last two years different outbreaks of the malady, and as 

 its extension in this kingdom especially is an object of 

 much practical importance, as thereby a greater risk is 

 incurred of its reaching those countries which are in 

 direct communication with our ports, that as complete 

 a history of these recent visitations should be here given 

 as we have been able to collect. 



The Recent Outbreak of the Rinderpe.st in 

 Eastern Europe. 



Throughout the late war, the movements of the Rus- 

 sian troops necessarily called for the transit of large 

 numbers of cattle to those places which the army suc- 

 cessively occupied ; and it appears more than probab'e 

 that the wide diffusion of the "stepi)e murrain" which has 

 occurred within the last three years has depended en- 

 tirely upon this cause. 



The ordinary traffic in cattle leads, it is true, to the 

 annual removal of large herds from the steppes; and 

 hence the outbreaks of the rinderpest in those countries 

 which are otherwise free from it can often be traced to 

 the animals which find their way from the various fairs 

 and markets. No cause, however, is so potent in the 

 spread of the disease as the outbreak of a Russian war ; 

 and consequently, whenever circumstances have required 

 the passage of her troops over the frontier, the pest has 

 m mifpsted itself in a far more extensive form. 



Thus it is recorded that, " during the Russo-Turkish 

 war in 1827 and 1828, the Russian cattle which were 

 sent for the supply of the army carried the murraiu with 

 them, and that it destroyed no less than 30,000 head of 

 cattle in Hungary, 12,000 in Galicia, and 9,000 in 

 Moravia.'-' 



Again in 1831, 1832, and 1833, in conseqtience of 

 the Polish insurrection, the disease committed great 

 ravages in that country, causing considerable distress. 

 At this period it also crossed the Prussian frontier, in 

 the department of Bromberg, and, although quickly ex- 

 terminated, swept away nearly 1,000 head of cattle. 



In 1849-50 the malady again prevailed to a very great 

 extent in Hungary, its introduction being due, accord- 

 ing to the official report of M.M. Renault and Imlin, 

 commissioners appointed by the French Government to 

 inquire into the subject, to the passage of the Russian 

 troops from Wallachia by way of Transylvania. 



Very shortly also after the army of Russia was sent 

 to occupy the Principalities, rumours of the cattle plague 

 became current ; and we find that as early as 1854 the 

 disease had made considerable progress both in Volhynia 

 and Podolia. From that period nearly down to the pre- 

 sent the malady gradually extended itself, until it 

 reached most of the countries in Eastern Europe, and 

 some parts even of Asia Minor. From the Principali- 

 ties it can be traced in a northerly and westerly direc- 

 tion into Moravia, Galicia, Poland, Prussia, Lithumia, 

 &c. ; easterly into Bessarabia, Southern Russia, and the 

 Crimea ; as also into Turkey, and to the southern shore 

 of the Black Sea. 



We have not been able to arrive at any correct esti- 

 mate of the immense losses these several countries sus- 

 tained in consequence ot this visitation ; but it has been 

 officialy reported that no less than 26,442 head of cattle 

 were destroyed in the Austrian dominions in the year 

 1856. And Consul-General Mansfield, in a despatch 

 from Warsaw, states that from May 9th, 1856, to the 

 date of his report, March 29th, 1857, twenty thousand 

 beasts had been sacrificed in Poland alone. It has like- 

 wise been said that the French army lost in Samsoun 

 8,000 beasts out of 17,500 in the space of nine months, 

 and that we lost during the same time 4,000 out of 

 10,000 from the pest — facts which may help to convey 

 an idea of the hundreds of thousands which were swept 

 away. 



Mr. Radcliffe, M.R.C.S., who lately held a commis- 

 sion in the Ottoman army, reports that, while he was 

 stationed at Sinope, the murrain was developed towards 

 the termination of the spring or early part of the summer 

 of 1855, and that in the month of June it reached its 

 acme. " Scattered cases," he adds, " occurred, how- 

 ever, from time to time until November, when, about 

 the second or third week of the month, the disease broke 

 out again with great fierceness, spread rapidly kmong 

 the cattle in the depot and in the town, reached a second 

 acme about the termination of the month, declined dur- 

 ing December, and ceased altogether in January, 1856." 



Among many others also, -Mr. Walton Mayer, V.S. to 

 the " Royal Engineer Field Equipment." who was, 

 during the war, attached to the Land Transport Corps, 

 speaks of the existence of the disease in several parts of 

 Turkey, and in the immediate neighbourhood of Con- 

 stantinople, in the summer of 1855, Early in the same 

 year, in consequence of a considerable part of both Aus- 

 trian and Russian Poland having become the seat of the 

 disease, much apprehension was shown lest it should 

 cross the Prussian frontier. To prevent this the Prus- 

 sian Government took the precaution of sending detach- 

 ments of troops to all the points of egress below Thorn, 

 with a view of cuttin<j ofif the communication with the 

 infected localities. 



