214 Report on Steppe Murrain or Rinderpest. 



way of a direct trade of this kind are too ijre&t for it to be carried 

 on with facility or advantage. Such cattle would have to make 

 the port of Kiel, and be then disembarked in order to be placed 

 on the vessels navigating the canal which connects Kiel with the 

 Eider, and on reaching Tonning be again re-embarked on vessels 

 bound for England. 



Denmark, Schleswig, and Holstein. 



In September last it was officially communicated to the Go- 

 vernment that " the steppe murrain of Russia had made its way into 

 Holstein,^' having passed through Poland, Prussia, and Mecklen- 

 burg. We ascertained, however, that this disease had had no 

 existence in this part of Europe sincet the occasion of its last 

 general outbreak in 1813. It is also recorded that up to that 

 time the affection had not prevailed in the Duchies since] 774 to 

 1781, when 150,000 head of cattle are said to have perished. 



Pleuro pneumonia is rife in Holstein, particularly in the 

 neighbourhood of Altona, where an active cattle-trade is carried 

 on. The malady is said originally to have appeared here in 1842, 

 or nearly about the same time that it was first observed in England. 

 At the commencement of 1843, Herr Kottger, district veterinary 

 surgeon of Altona, received orders from the Danish Government 

 to watch the progress of the disease. No active means to limit 

 its extension weie, however, had recourse to until 1845, when the 

 Government sent Professor Witt, of Copenhagen, to investigate 

 the matter. Professor Witt and Herr llottger, with a surgeon 

 and the Government veterinary surgeon of Hamburg, formed a 

 sanitary commission of inquiry'. The commission came to the 

 conclusion that the disease was highly contagious, and recom- 

 mended the Government to adopt the most stringent measures of 

 prevention. These consist in chief of — 



a. Sequestration of the places where the disease is found to exist, 



b. The immediate slaughter of the infected animals. 



€. The killing of the whole herd upon the occurrence of fresh 

 cases. 



d. The burial of the diseased cattle with their skins on, cut 

 in such a manner as to prevent their being surreptitiously disposed 

 of, and the sprinkling the body over with chloride of lime. 



The indemnity consists of the Government paying two-thirds 

 of the value of the diseased animals, and the full value of the 

 healthy, the loss to the treasury being partly provided for by the 

 Government selling by public auction the carcases of the animals 

 which are free from disease. 



For the carrying out of these regulations, it is ordered among 

 other things that every proprietor of cattle shall, upon the out- 



