152 BOVINE PATHOLOGY. 



imperative. Burning tar in byres and sheds used to be 

 recommended as a means of disinfection, but now we 

 prefer the use of the numerous agents of tried value, 

 which are mentioned in our Pharmacopoeias — carbolic 

 acid, sulphurous acid, chloride of zinc, &c. Special 

 attendants must be told off to infected animals; these 

 must be strictly prevented from approaching any healthy 

 cattle, and ought to be disinfected daily. All carcases of 

 diseased animals should be burnt in their hides, together 

 with the straw upon which they have been lying. The 

 virus may remain in a latent condition after the animals 

 have been buried, and render the soil a medium of con- 

 tagion (except when they have been buried in quicklime). 

 The sheds should be sluiced down with strong disinfecting 

 solution, so that no excreta bearing virus in a harmful 

 condition may pass into the sewers. The patients should 

 for the most part, and, as a rule, be slaughtered at once, 

 and their hides slashed. If some of the milder cases are 

 kept for observation or treatment, an endeavour must be 

 made to support the strength of the patients by stimulants, 

 combined with vegetable tonics, as beer or gentian, with 

 nitrous ether. Numberless recipes have been submitted, 

 tested, and proved worthless. We can name no agent 

 capable of acting as an antidote to rinderpest poison. 

 The strength requires to be supported by every available 

 means, especially the administration of gruel and other 

 easily digestible but nutritive matters. Internal disin- 

 fection has been much recommended, and in this direction 

 future endeavours to treat specific diseases must be made. 

 But inspection, stoppage of cattle traffic from diseased 

 countries, stamping out any outbreaks which occur, and 

 quarantine of all suspected animals must be adopted. 



Inoculation has been tried as a prophylactic, but it 

 reproduces the disease in all its fatality and communi- 

 cability. Vaccination, too, was unsuccessfully resorted to 

 during the 1865-66 outbreak, under the supposition that 

 rinderpest is a form of smallpox. Neither of these mea- 

 sures, therefore, is advantageous. 



Fost-mortem examination. — Considerable variations of 



