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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



typhus, the usual measures were re-established with 

 great severity. The disease was instantly arrested, and 

 rapidly disappeared. The French veterinarians, who 

 arrived at the moment at Prague, on their return from 

 Moravia, being consulted by the local government, had 

 no hesitation in declaring themselves of the opinion of 

 their brother surgeon, in approving the energetic re- 

 sumption of isolation and slaughtering. 



This epizootie of 1844-5, which destroyed a million 

 of cattle in Russia, and caused considerable losses in 

 Gallicia, Moravia, Bohemia, and Lower Austria, did not 

 enter upon any point in France, Saxony, or Bavaria, 

 so near as were their frontiers, thanks to the sanitary 

 measures prescribed by these several states, and enforced 

 by them with great severity ; which is a further proof of 

 what cannot be too often repeated, that the typhus is 

 not an epizootie developing itself like the scab, cholera, 

 or plague, under epidemic influence or any medical con- 

 stitution whatever, but a disease extending itself, and 

 only capable of extending itself by means of contagion, 

 which all the observations made up to this day tend to 

 establish by the most conclusive evidence. 



This is a truth so much the more important to re- 

 peat, in that it follows from it that a country threatened 

 might always secure itself against it by closing up all 

 the avenues of contagion. 



Some years later — in 1856 — we again entertained 

 fears, in France particularly, in consequence of the 

 Great Exposition, M. Renault and M. Imlin returned 

 into the east of Germany. There they stated, after 

 having pushed their investigations into the heart of Hun- 

 gary, that the epizootie had been devastating that coun- 

 try every since 1849. It had been introduced there by 

 the Russian armies, coming from Wallachia by Transyl- 

 vania. It was in 1854 that the disease was at its 

 height; and yet even then it was not spoken of in 

 France. When, in 1856, they began to be terrified, it 

 was closed up in a single circle — that of Buda — and 

 seemed about to disappear. 



The Hungarian race of cattle do not engender the 

 typhus. The disease is solely due to the race of the 

 Russian steppes ; and it has reigned so long in Hungary 

 only in consequence of the difficulty they labour under 

 in adopting sanitary measures in a country still groan- 

 ing under the consequences of a terrible war, and in 

 which the Administration experiences great difficulty in 

 organizing itself. The war had in a few days intro- 

 duced the typhus into Hungary ; but it requires a pro- 

 longed peace to root it out from thence. 



In spite of the nearness of the infected countries, the 

 contagion, thanks to the measures taken at the frontier, 

 has not been able to enter Austria ; and yet the 

 slaughter-houses of Vienna never cease a single in- 

 stant from drawing their supplies from Hungary, taking 

 care however to admit into Austria only cattle coming 

 from non-infected districts, and proved to be healthy. 

 As to those suspected, they destroy them at the fron- 

 tier, cut them up there, and'convey the meat to Vienna 

 in closed carriages, having that special service. 



We have, therefore, no reason to fear the invasion of 

 this terrible scourge. It takes its origin in the steppes 



of Russia. The states which separate us from those coun- 

 tries know the certain means of arresting the evil in its 

 passage. Sanitary measures are enforced as soon as the 

 danger is proclaimed, and executed with severity. The 

 frontiers are guarded carefully, and if it is judged ne- 

 cessary to suffer animals to pass, healthy in appearance, 

 but coming from a suspected country, the drove is not 

 allowed to deviate from a passage specially marked out 

 and completely isolated. 



In the course of this same journey, Messrs. Renault 

 and Imlin have slated that, at the same time, the cattle 

 pest made great ravages in Poland, where it had been 

 conveyed in 1855 by infected droves, brought by Jewish 

 merchants to supply the corps of Russian troops, dis- 

 persed in many of the fortresses of that great province. 

 It has ever since been established and maintained there, 

 in consequence of the absence of sanitary arrangements ; 

 and in spite of the vigilance exercised upon the whole 

 line of the Prussian frontier, it had penetrated into the 

 Duchy of Posen, where it had invaded two villages ; and 

 into the province of Konigsberg, in which thirty-four 

 villages were infected. Immediately, however, that the 

 Prussian local authorities were informed of it, the disease 

 had been circumscribed to its central point, and sup- 

 pressed by the immediate slaughter of the diseased or 

 suspected animals, and by the isolation, during a suf- 

 ficient period, of the villages that had been infected, 



M, Renault was assured that during this epizootie of 

 Hungary, the states of Poland, Austria, and Prussia, had 

 alone taken precautions ; whilst Bavaria, Saxony, and 

 the other German states had not considered it necessary 

 to take any for themselves. 



In order to show the facility with which the epi- 

 zootie is detected as soon as it commences, and may be 

 suppressed at once in Prussia, M. Renault explained 

 the way in which the sanitary veterinary service is 

 organized, and usefully worked in that country. And 

 he adds that, in Prussia, the diseased animal, declared 

 by the owner, is slaughtered and paid for at a third of 

 its value. If the animal has not been declared, not only 

 the proprietor receives no indemnity, but he is con- 

 demned in a heavy penalty. The price of suspected 

 animals, which it is judged proper to sacrifice, is paid 

 in full. The indemnities are levied beforehand by the 

 State upon the proprietors, according to the number of 

 animals possessed. 



In some parls of Gallicia, Messrs. Renault and Imlin 

 have visited districts in which, without the intervention 

 of the State or local administration, similar measures are 

 agreed upon and executed by the proprietors of cattle 

 spontaneously ; and in case of the sacrifice of diseased 

 or suspected animals, they assess themselves in the same 

 proportions. 



We shall mention further, as a point of interest, the 

 following fact stated by M. Renault : At different 

 periods, inoculation has been held up as an excellent 

 means of preserving cattle from the typhus, or, at least, 

 of rendering it very mild. In this last epizootie, a large 

 proprietor and cultivator in the neighbourhood of the 

 Duchy of Posen wished to make trial of it, and of 100 

 cows inoculated the whole died. We consider the ex- 



