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pneumonia,” which has once scourged Massachusetts ; and of late the ‘‘ Spanish 
fever,’ communicated by apparently healthy cattle to the stock along the route 
which they travel, has been characterized by the same name. Even some of 
the agricultural papers are asking, “‘ Have we the rinderpest?’ Were there 
room for doubt, or occasion for mistake, such assertions would be pardonable; 
but a total ignorance of the peculiarities of the cattle disease called rinderpest, 
which was two years ago so destructive in Great Britain, is involved in such 
statements. We have no “rinderpest,” and never has a disease bearing its 
characteristics been examined and described within the limits of the United 
States. 
It is assumed in these erroneous reports of local cattle maladies that the seat 
of disease in the “plague ” or “ rinderpest” is in the lungs, as in pleuro-pneu- 
monia, and also taken for granted that there is no definite information concern- 
ing the post-mortem appearance of the internal organs, notwithstanding the 
existence of the disease in Europe for centuries and the loss of millions of cattle. 
The voluminous reports of the commissioners appointed by the British gov- 
ernment, after weary months of labor,with the aid of distinguished medical experts, 
commissioned to experiment and report upon the diagnosis, the general and 
chemical pathology, the microscopic indications, and the treatment of the dis- 
ease, show conclusively that this dreaded disease is no more like pleuro-pneu- 
monia than human small-pox is like lung fever. 
Of these reports, that of J. Burdon-Sanderson, M.D., fellow of the Royal 
College of Physicians, makes the disease “an essential or general fever,”’ dis- 
tinguished in its local manifestations “ by an alteration of the superficial struc- 
tures of the skin and mucous membraues,” consisting of minute capillary conges- 
tion, of increased and perverted growth of the structural elements, and increased 
and perverted activity of the secreting glands of the skin and mucous mem- 
brane. This characteristic is so marked that Dr. 8. thus refers to the earlier 
diagnostic signs : 
Just as small-pox is distinguished exclusively by its eruption, erysipelas by the inflamma- 
tion of the skin, diphtheria by the membranous concretion of the fauces, so cattle plague 
may be discriminated from all other diseases whatsoever by the alterations of the visible 
mucous membranes generally, and particularly by those of the lips and gums. 
Dr. Marcet, F.R.S., also a fellow of the College of Physicians, shows the 
peculiar changes produced by the disease upon the blood, the bile, the milk, and 
the muscular tissue, and of the blood says: ‘“ The falling off of the water and 
consequent increase of solids in the blood, establishes an interesting parallel 
between the cholera and the cattle plague,” while the flesh contains more 
soluble albumen than in health, the urea in the urine is strikingly increased 
while the temperature of the animal continues rising, the quantity of the milk 
diminishes rapidly and is of less specific gravity and richer in fatty matters, 
the bile contains more water and mineral matters than usual and is peculiarly 
subject to early decomposition. 
Dr. Charles Murchison, F.R.C.S., physician to the London Fever Hospital, 
reporting upon the pathology of the disease and its relation to human diseases, 
gives, as the chief symptoms, fever with general depression, an apthous condition 
of the interior of the mouth and nostrils, an eruption of the skin, composed of 
roseolar patches and sometimes pustules, running from the nostrils and mouth, 
suppression of milk, constipation followed by diarrheea, albuminuria, hematuria, 
and finally a condition similar to the “typhoid state” in human maladies; the 
principal morbid conditions after death, catarrhal inflammation, and even gan- 
grene of the mucous surfaces, unusually dark color of the blood, peculiar odor, 
and great proneness to decomposition; and declares that it bears no resemblance 
to typhoid fever in man, and is equally distinct from human typhus, scarlet 
fever, erysipelas, influenza, and dysentery, while small-pox is the human malady 
it most resembles, not only in cutaneous eruptions, but in symptoms, anatomical 
2. 
