252 Rejwrt on Steppe Murrain or Rinderpest. 



being- cast off, and principally by the digestive canal, the patient 

 slowly rallies, and the functions of the organism are gradually 

 restored. Healthy fibrine again supplies the place of that which 

 was lost, so that the blood will now clot when removed from the 

 vessels, and be once more brought into a state to support the 

 vitality of the prostrated organs. Ulceration of the mucous 

 membranes, commencing in the follicles, may attend these pro- 

 cesses, but it is not a necessary pathological condition of the 

 pest. It is rather to be regarded as a sequence depending for its 

 existence on the amount of the contamination of the blood, the 

 duration of the disease, and the diminished strength of the vital 

 forces. In all this we have a great similarity to the pathology 

 of the small-pox, but in that disease the external skin is the 

 principal focus of the malady ; while in rinderpest the mucous 

 membranes or internal skin are its chief seat. Small-pox fre- 

 quently proves fatal before the local symptoms are well esta- 

 blished, and so indeed does rinderpest from the great amount 

 of morbific matter Avith which the system is charged. 



Names given to the disease. — Of all the terms which have been 

 given to this malady, there is none which we are willing to adopt 

 in preference to " lliNDEurEST." It is the one which we have 

 employed throughout this Report, although it may be thought 

 that it Is too general in its application and deficient also in 

 explicitness to be selected in preference to others which set forth 

 something of the nature of the disease. Tlie term nevertheless 

 explains that the affection is a true cattle plac/ne ; and, besides 

 this, being the one which Is used throughout Germany, it is 

 thoroughly understood in nearly every European state — a fact 

 which gives it a value above many others. 



" Steppe Murrain," although it tends to throw some light on 

 the chief location of the disease, fails to take cognizance even of 

 the kind of animal which is the subject of it, and leaves the 

 pathology entirely unexplained. 



" Contagious typhus " is far from being appropriate, not- 

 withstanding that the disease has some characters which are 

 common to the typhus of man. The differences which are ob- 

 served in the duration, progress, symptoms, and results of the 

 two maladies, are far too numerous and important to warrant the 

 pathologist in the adoption of a definite term of this kind, and 

 for this reason we have abstained from employing It. 



" Loser durre " is in our opinion the most inappropriate of 

 any of the names we have alluded to. The hardness of the third 

 stomach, or rather of its contents, which the term implies, is not a 

 speciality attaching to the affection. It may often be present, but 

 it is just as frequently absent. The term directs attention to one 

 particular part of the body as the seat of diseased action, and con- 



