248 TJie Caitle-Plaguc. 



resemblance to liumau disease exists, it points to a condition of the internal 

 lining membrane analogous to that of the skin in acute scarlatina, and the 

 disease might not inaptly be termed an internal or mucous scarlatina. The 

 general congestive but non-inflanmiatory state of the mucous membranes, 

 the epithelial disquamation from the mucous surface, the increased tempera- 

 ture of the animal in the earlj' stage of the disease of the inciibation ]3eriod 

 and critical days, are facts which all tend to support this \\e\\ ; Avhile the 

 condition of the kidneys and the invariable presence of albumen and blood- 

 cells in the urine lend additional confirmatiou to it." 



Dr. William Budd, of Clifton, speaks thus of it*: — "De- 

 finite in cliaractei-, affecting for the most part only a single 

 species, having a period of incubation, occurring as a rule but 

 once in life, specific in the highest sense of that word, and 

 in its very essence a contagious fever, it is a perfectly typical 

 member of that family of which human typhoid fever and human 

 small-pox are familiar examples, . . . What variola ovina is 

 to human variola, that precisely is this typhoid fever of the 

 ox to human typhoid, not identical in either case; not inter- 

 communicable, essentially different in species, but so nearly 

 related as to admit, on a superficial view of being confounded, 

 each with its counterpart." The common term applied to this 

 malady by the French writers, including IiEYNAULT, LouiS, 

 BoULEY, and BOUKGUIGNON — T?/])hus contagieux — sufficiently 

 indicates the state of opinion concerning it across the Channel. 



Professor SiMONDS, in the Report before referred to, says : — 



" It is difficult to speak with certainty of the true nature of the rinderpest, 

 but it is evident that if the morbific matter on which it depends, having 

 entered the system through the medium of the organs of respiration, soon 

 acts upon the blood by converting some of the constituents of that fluid into 

 its own elements, and that, while this process is going on, the animal gives no 

 recognisable indications of being the subject of the malad}-. This period 

 constitutes the incubative stage of the disease. The blood having thus become 

 contaminated, its vitality impaired, and the poison augmented a thousand-fold 

 within the organism, the brain and nervous systems, as the centres of sensation 

 and motion, have their normal functions necessarily and quickly interfered 

 Avith, and hence one of the earliest indications of the disease is a spasmodic 

 twitching of the voluntary and other muscles of the body." 



Then follows the battle in the body between the power of 

 the poison and the power of the constitution: — 



"Ulceration of tlie mucous membranes, commencing in the follicles, may 

 attend these processes, 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 diseases, 

 and the diminished strength of the vital forces. In all this we have a great 

 similarity to the pathology of the sma]l-]iox, 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." 



* Address read at the British Medical Association at Leamington, Ausust 4th, 

 65. 



