CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 473 



course of a few months. In 1867, Germany was again visited by tlie 

 I)lague, which, however, was prevented by timely measures from spread- 

 ing beyond the eastern provinces of Prussia. In 1870, soon after the 

 outbreak of the Franco- German war, the rinderpest appeared in Ger- 

 many in consequence of im|>ortations of cattle from Eussia, and spread 

 over Germany and France, following the movements of the armies. In 

 the beginning of the year 1877, the disease was again carried into Ger- 

 many by Eussian cattle, and made rapid progress, because the imported 

 animals, apparently healthy, but already infected, were allowed to reach 

 the markets of Breslau, Berlin, and Hamburg, from which cities the in- 

 fection was gradually communicated to other places. In Dresden the 

 disease spread at once through the whole market. Towards the end of 

 August, 1877, the rinderpest was reported by our consular ofl&cers as 

 extinguished in the German Empire ; but the danger of its reappearance 

 in consequence of possible movements of cattle from the steppes of 

 Southern Eussia to the borders of Germany, though much lessened by 

 the stringent sanitary regulations adopted by the Eussian Government, 

 is not regarded as entirely obviated. 



Fleming, in his excellent work on Veterinary Sanitary Science, says 

 that, in recent years, several of the most competent veterinarians have 

 endeavored to ascertain the home of the cattle plague, but without much 

 success. Unterberger throws much doubt upon Eussia and its steppes 

 being the source of the m'alady, and he asserts that it is a purely conta- 

 gious disease in Eussia-in-Europe, and also, perhaps, in the whole Eus- 

 sian Empire. It has been seen in Southern Eussia, the Asiatic Steppes, 

 in different parts of India ; in Mongolia, China (south and west), Co- 

 chin China, Burmah, Hindostan, Persia, Thibet, and Ceylon. It is as 

 yet unltnown in the United States, AustraUa^ and New Zealand. So 

 far as Europe is concerned the geographical limits of the disease may 

 be given as follows : " Beyond the Eussian frontiers, and even in every 

 part of that empire, the steppes excepted, the cattle plague is evidently 

 a purely contagious malady. It is never developed primarily in Europe, 

 either in indigenous cattle or in those originally from the steppes, and 

 it has not yet been positively demonstrated that it may be primarily de- 

 veloped in the Eussian Steppes ; the most recent observations even tend 

 to prove that in the European portions of these regions the att'ection is 

 only present through the transmission of a contagium. Consequently, 

 the plague is a malady which is perhaps primarily developed in the 

 Eusso- Asiatic Steppes — perhaps elsewhere — but is never seen in Europe 

 except by the importation of its contagious pcinciple." 



In Eussia the malady is known as Tchouma, Tchouma reina, and Flem- 

 ing regards it as important to note the employment of this term by the 

 Eussians to designate the cattle plague. Eeynal has pointed out that 

 it proves, philologically, the region in which the disease originates, or 

 rather permanently reigns — in the far east. History demonstrates that 

 the appearance of the disease in early times in Western Euroi)e coin- 

 cided with the eruptions of the ^longols, and that the contagion accom- 

 panied armies ; that the route it has followed in more recent years was 

 that of the Huns, and that it remained with these people in the colony 

 they founded on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The word Tchouma is 

 used by the Mongols and Nomad Tartars of Central Asia to signify a 

 malevolent deity — something of the nature of a vampii'e ; and it has been 

 adopted, with slight modifications, by all the people who have had any 

 relations with that region. 



