Report on Steppe Murrain or Rinderpest. 199 



3rtl. For the cleaning and fumigating the sheds, »5cc,, and for 

 no sound cattle to be put in them for two months after the 

 removal of the diseased. 



4th. For no recovered animal to be allowed to go near others 

 for a month after its convalescence. 



5th. For no diseased cattle to be driven to fairs or markets, 

 nor for the flesh to be used as food for dogs, &c. 



6th. For no healthy cattle to be removed from a farm where 

 the disease had prevailed in less than a month after its disap- 

 pearance. 



And, lastly, orders were given for the notice of an outbreak to 

 be immediately sent by the farmers to either the constables, 

 churchwardens, overseers, or the special inspectors appointed by 

 the magistrates acting for the parish or district. The Govern- 

 ment also undertook to pay forty shillings for every ox, bull, or 

 cow which was killed, and ten shillings for every calf, with a 

 corresponding price for their skins. 



Mr. Youatt, in his account of the disease, as published in the 

 work entitled ' Cattle,' says, " Of the propriety of this bonus for 

 the destruction of infected cattle, there cannot be a doubt, for 

 there were numerous instances in which those who began to kill 

 the sick as soon as the distemper appeared among their cattle, 

 lost very few ; but others, who would kill none until their own 

 folly had made them wiser, did not save more than one out of 

 ten." 



Many difficulties were thrown in the way of carrying out 

 the instructions, and not a few impositions were practised by 

 some designing persons claiming the award for old and worn-out 

 animals, as well as for those which were suffering from totally 

 different diseases. In this day, now that veterinary surgeons are 

 practising in every part of the country, such frauds would scarcely 

 be attempted ; and we believe, in the event of occasion requiring 

 it, that a system of inspection, comparatively inexpensive, might be 

 devised which would effectually prevent any instances of the kind. 



It is further recorded that in one year, the third of the exist- 

 ence of the disease, 135,000/. was paid out of the Treasury as a 

 recompense for the cattle killed according to the prescribed 

 orders, and that during the same year 80,000 head of cattle were 

 killed, and nearly double that number died from the disease. To 

 meet this alarming state of things, and the difficulties which 

 sprung out of the adoption of the measures of the Government, 

 various other Orders of Council were promulgated, and in the 

 third order we find that no cattle, fat or lean, would be suffered 

 to pass the Humber and the Trent northward from its date, 

 namely, January 19th, 1747, to the 27th of the following March ; 

 the object evidently being to protect the cattle in the northern 



p2 



