Report on Steppe Murrain or Rinderpest. 203 



pleuro-pneumonia succeed the serous, and are probably due to 

 either an alteration in the relative proportion of the component 

 parts of the blood, or an interference with its vitality, brought 

 about by the pi-esence of the special materies inorhi of the disease, 

 and which may have entered it in the ordinary manner of in- 

 fection. The abnormal action which commenced in the parenchy- 

 ma of the lungs extends towards their investing membrane, when, 

 from the nature of this tissue, as well as from the longer exist- 

 ence of the action itself, an augmented fibrinous exudation takes 

 place upon their surface. We regard, therefore, the implication 

 of the pleura as a characteristic of an advanced stage of the 

 malady, and also of a still further deterioration of the blood. 



Since the appearance of pleuro-pneumonia no other disease of 

 a fatal character and possessing contagious or epizootic proper- 

 ties has shown itself among our cattle ; but in 1847 a very fatal 

 malady broke out among sheep. This affection was recognised 

 as the small-pox of sheep ; and it was ascertained in the most 

 conclusive manner that it had been introduced here by some 

 " Merinos " which had been shipped at Tonning on the coast of 

 Denmark, and also by some others shipped at about the same 

 time at Hamburg for the supply of the English market, and in 

 whose systems the disease was incubated. From the free com- 

 mingling of these foreign sheep with our own breeds in the Lon- 

 don Cattle Market, and also from the circumstance that many of 

 them were purchased by farmers as " stock sheep," the small-pox 

 was soon spread over a great extent of country, proving destruc- 

 tive to life in numerous instances at the rate of even 90 per cent. 



This state of things was met by legislative enactments with a 

 view to arrest the progress of the disease, and happily they proved 

 of essential service in so doing. By the expiration of the third 

 year from the outbreak, scarcely an instance of the disease could 

 be met with in any part of the country, and this notwithstanding 

 that tens of thousands of animals were, to our own knowledge, 

 affected in the year succeeding its introdaction. From the time 

 of its subsidence in 1850 until now we have been perfectly exempt 

 from cases of small-pox. 



This short historical account of epizootic aff"ections of cattle 

 in this country brings us down to the present period, and to 

 the especial subject of this Report. It was during the latter 

 part of the past year that the public mind became much 

 excited by frequent and almost continuous reports that a malady 

 of a most fatal description had shown itself among the cattle 

 on the Continent, and that it was rapidly extending towards 

 those countries whence we received our chief importations. In 

 the early part of the present year the subject assumed so 

 much practical importance that the attention of Parliament 



