CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 129 



measures agaiust this plague, leaving it to intrench itself more and 

 more firmly and to maintain itself permanently in a country where it is 

 only an exotic, a foreign invader, and where it could easily be excluded 

 through an efficient international system. For this, therefore, even 

 more than for rinderpest, an efficient system of mutual international 

 protection is urgently demanded. 



The aphthous fever is largely combated by restrictions on the move- 

 ment of cattle and the interdiction of fairs and markets, yet these 

 rarely arrest its progress, but the barriers that put a stop to the rinder- 

 pest allow the aphthous fever to pass, as happened in Saxony in 18G7. 

 With such a diffusible poison success miist be sought in its declaration, 

 suppression, and seclusion in the home herds and by preventing it from 

 passing at all into the channels of traffic, and this can only be secured 

 through a common international system. 



Formerly lung plague, aphthous fever, and sheep-pox remained habit- 

 ually circumscribed in particular districts ; to-day, with the great move- 

 ments of stock in mass, their concentration in vast markets, and their 

 constant changes in the large feeding stables, it has become impossible 

 to deal effectively with these plagues except in native herds, ami this 

 imperatively demands a uniform international system, with solid mutual 

 guarantees. 



Glanders and farcy occurring in an occult form with lesions internal 

 and unsuspected, and following a chronic course, is another fruitful 

 source of trouble, and a country that pays for such animals when 

 slaughtered especially suffers, as the diseased animals are smuggled 

 across the frontier in order to secure the indemnity. Even the residence 

 of several months required in order to the payment of indemnity is 

 insufficient to guard against this sharp practice. 



The mad dog does not always take the road to the custom-house, nor 

 recognize the colors of the frontier posts. Here, therefore, it becomes 

 necessary to maintain a common system of repression and the mutual 

 notification of the existence of rabies. 



Maladie du coif , though, unlike the two last, in that it respects the 

 human family, should yet as regards the equine races be made the ob- 

 ject of international guarantees. 



Anthrax and several pjirasitic maladies, including even measles and 

 trichinosis in swine, are more purely matters of local danger, and are 

 to be controlled by local measures and by inspection in the great meat 

 markets. 



Energetic sanitary measures within the limits of a single state have 

 been often notably successful, as against lung plague in Switzerland, 

 Holland, I*ortugal, Sweden, and Denmark against sheep-pox, apart from 

 Northern German}' and Hungary, and against rabies in Baden. How 

 much better if there were a common international co-operation, which 

 would at once more effectively repress animal plagues and release the 

 commerce in live stock and all their fresh products (hides, hoofs, hair, 

 5751 D A 9 



