230 Report on Steppe Murrain or Rinderpest. 



official paper (Gazette). Besides this, we prohibited the attend- 

 ance of persons at the weekly markets of the towns lying nearest 

 to the threatened boundary with those species of cattle, as well as 

 with other things likely to convey infection, and which the law 

 of 1833 specially enumerates ; we likewise ordered establish- 

 ments to be erected for personal purification in the villages 

 wherein the frontier custom-office is established ; stationed 

 gendarmes in the villages on our side of the boundary situated 

 nearest the infected Polish districts, and charged the district 

 commissaries in the immediate neighbourhood, 'under pain of 

 dismissal from office, with the execution of the preventive mea- 

 sures in case the contagion should break out in our territory. 

 We further empowered the Counsellors of the Administration of 

 the district to order the district veterinary surgeons to inspect the 

 villages and places on the boundary as often as necessity required, 

 and to watch over the state of health of the cattle there." 



Notwithstanding that these precautions were rigorously 

 adopted, the disease crossed the Prussian frontier ; and in the 

 latter part of November, 1855, it manifested itself in the circle 

 of Inowraclaw, and shortly afterwards in the circle of Gnesen^ 

 near to the town of Posen. The official report states, that on 

 this occurrence " general measures were taken for closing the 

 boundaries of the places infected, and special ones for the in- 

 fected farmyards, by means of sentries posted under the super- 

 intendence of gendarmes ; quarantine stables were established^ 

 superintendents and cattle inspectors appointed, and these 

 persons provided with written instructions and bound by oath (o 

 their observance; all trade in cattle was forbidden within a 

 circuit of three miles, all dogs chained up, and every proprietor ot 

 cattle within a circuit of two miles from the infected place was 

 bound, upon pain of incurring the penalty of sec, 309 of the 

 Criminal Law, to give immediate notice even of the least symp- 

 tom of disease among his cattle to the mayor of the place, who 

 had forthwith to inform the Counsellor of the Administration of 

 the district, by an express messenger, of such cases of disease, 

 provided they did not proceed from exterior injuries." 



" These measures for prevention and cutting off intercourse were 

 in no instance abandoned before the expiration of the fourth 

 week ; and the carcases of the cattle that had died of the pest, or 

 had been killed in consequence of its appearance in infected dis- 

 tricts, no matter whether diseased or healthy, were always, after 

 their skins had been cut into pieces on all parts of the body, 

 buried in pits from six to eight feet deep, each carcase being 

 previously covered with unslacked lime." 



At the first the chief execution of these preventive means on 

 the several farms was intrusted to civilians, but very early in 



