294 INFECTIVE DISEASES. 



kind and appearance. Dr. Layard, in 1780, described this disease of 

 horned cattle as an eruptive fever of the variolous kind, with the 

 appearance and stages of small-pox. This resemblance was endorsed 

 by Murchison, one of the Commissioners appointed in 1866 to 

 inquire into the origin and nature of cattle plague. 



Murchison pointed out that in both diseases the eruption con- 

 sisted of pustules and scabs, and that in both it extended from 

 the skin to the interior of the mouth and nostrils ; in both, the 

 pustules and scabs were preceded or accompanied by patches of 

 roseola ; in both, they were occasionally interspersed with petechise ; 

 and in both, they sometimes left behind pitted scars and discolora- 

 tions on the cutis. The other prominent symptoms of rinderpest 

 were also those of small-pox viz., pyrexia, lumbar pain, salivation, 

 and running from the nostrils, alvine flux, albuminuria, hsematuria, 

 and " the typhoid state." The anatomical lesions of the internal 

 organs in rinderpest and unmodified small-pox were identical viz., 

 congestion or inflammation of the mucous membranes of the air 

 passages and digestive canal, patches of ecchymosis and even 

 gangrene of the stomach and other mucous surfaces, and darkly 

 coloured blood. In both rinderpest and small-pox the duration 

 of the pyrexial stage was on an average about eight days. In 

 both diseases a peculiarly offensive odour was exhaled from the 

 body before and after death. The two diseases resembled one 

 another in their extreme contagiousness, and in the facility with 

 which the poison was transmitted by foinites. Both diseases were 

 easily propagated by inoculation, and in both cases the inoculated 

 disease was milder and less fatal than that resulting from infection. 

 In both diseases there was a period of incubation, which is shorter 

 when the poison has been introduced by inoculation than when it 

 has been received by infection. 



Ceely described the result of an accidental inoculation of cattle- 

 plague virus in the human subject. A vesicle was produced which 

 so closely corresponded with the result of inoculated cow-pox that 

 Ceely inclined to the belief that cattle plague was a malignant form 

 of cow-pox. The following is the account of this case as reported 

 by Ceely. Mr. Hancock, a veterinary inspector at Uxbridge, was 

 engaged in superintending the autopsy of a bullock recently dead of 

 cattle plague. His assistant, who was performing the operation, 

 while occupied in removing the skin from the scrotum, accidentally 

 punctured the back of Mr. Hancock's hand with the point of the 

 knife. The puncture being slight was disregarded at the time, but 

 was washed as soon as practicable, and thought of no more. Five 



