240 Report on Steppe Murrain or Rinderpest. 



seven animals v/ero placed, and in the other nine. Two days 

 prior to our arrival a case had occurred in the first station, and 

 more were daily looked for. The animal in question, a cow, 

 Avas observed by her owner, late in the evening of Thursday, 

 April 30th, to be out of health. She was reported early on the 

 following morning, and immediately seen by the Commissioners, 

 who at once recognised the pest. She lived till 2 p.m. on Satur- 

 day, May 2nd, only surviving the attack about forty-two hours. 

 After the body had been examined — which has to be done in 

 every instance — it was buried. The skin, however, was allowed 

 to be removed for the owner's use, subsequent to its being disin- 

 fected and prepared under the inspection of the proper officers. 



At our first visit to these quarantine stations, in company with 

 the Commissioners and Professor Nicklas, which was late in the 

 afterpart of Monday, May 4th, no indications of disease could 

 be detected in any of the animals — a fact not without some value, 

 as, on our second visit, at 6 a.m. of the following day, an aged cow, 

 one of the seven, exhibited some of the piemonitory symptoms oi 

 the pest. This case will hereafter be referred to. See page 253. 



According to arrangement, we next proceeded to exhume 

 the animal Avhich had died on Saturday, that we might note 

 for ourselves the several lesions which had been produced 

 by the disease. We found tliat all the viscera of the chest and 

 abdomen had been removed, and Avere lying by the side of the 

 body ; and on bringing both these and the carcase to the surface, 

 we were forcibly struck by the circumstance that so little decom- 

 position had taken place, that no unpleasant smell attended our 

 operations, although the animal had been dead about G5 hours. 

 The flesh also was firm, and of a normal colour, but the blood 

 was still fluid in the vessels, and of a darker hue than natural. 

 It will not be necessary, however, to give a detailed account of 

 the morbid appearances which were met with in the different 

 organs, as, in the course of this Report, we shall have to describe 

 the lesions in extenso, as they were observed in other cases ; suffice 

 it therefore to say, that although they left no doubt of the animal 

 having died from the rinderpest, they opened up new ideas in our 

 minds as to the pathology of the disease. 



Before proceeding to a description of the nature and symp- 

 toms of the malady, or the relation of individual cases of it, we 

 propose to give in the next place the 



History of the Aitearance of the Rinderpest in Zabrzez 



AND KaMIENICA. 



Until the present occasion, the villages of Zabrzez and Ka- 

 mienica, as well as all the surrounding district, have been perfectly 



