534. REPORT—1905. 
B. Parasite unknown. 
I. Rinderpest. 
II. Horse-sickness. 
Catarrhal Fever of Sheep. 
Heart-water of Sheep, Goats, and Cattle. 
I. DiszEASES CAUSED BY PARASITES BELONGING TO THE GENUS PIROPLASMA. 
1. Rast Coast Fever. 
The first important stock disease I would draw your attention to, then, is Hast 
Coast Fever. This name was given to it by Professor Robert Koch, of Berlin. 
In the Transvaal the disease is usually called Rhodesian Redwater. This term 
is not a good one, since the disease is not restricted to Rhodesia, nor did it arise 
there, nor is this a disease similar to the ordinary Redwater. Ten years ago, when 
I first came to South Africa, East Coast Fever was unknown in the Transvaal. 
The first known outbreak occurred only some three and a half years ago, when it 
broke out at Koomati and Neilspruit, in the Barberton district, and in the east of 
the Colony. The disease had broken out some time previously in Rhodesia, and 
the outbreaks in both Colonies were due to infection from Portuguese territory. 
Although this disease has only been introduced to the country during the last few 
years, it has already produced an enormous amount of damage among stock, and is 
probably the most dangerous disease that the people of the Transvaal have to cope 
with at the present time, and for some years to come. 
In the Annual Report of the Transvaal Department of Agriculture there is a 
most excellent report by Mr. Stockman, the then Principal Veterinary Surgeon, 
on the work of the veterinary division for the year 1903-1904. A large part of this 
report is given up to East Coast Fever, and I must here express my indebtedness to 
Mr. Stockman for much of the following account of this disease. In the same 
Annual Report there is also an account by Dr. Theiler, the Veterinary Bacterio- 
logist, of the experimental work. Messrs, Stockman and Theiler evidently worked 
together, and I must congratulate them on the immense amount of good, useful 
work done by them, and I would also congratulate the Government on having 
had the services of two such accomplished and energetic gentlemen during the 
late troublesome times. Unfortunately for the Transvaal, Mr. Stockman has 
accepted the post of Veterinary Adviser to the Board of Agriculture in England, 
but I have no doubt his successor, Mr. Gray, from Rhodesia, will continue the 
good work begun by him. 
East Coast Fever was first studied by Professor Koch at Dar-el-Salaam, in 
German East Africa, and he at first mistook it for ordinary Redwater. It seems 
to occur as an endemic disease along a great part of the East Coast of Africa, but 
appears to be restricted to a narrow belt along this coast-line. The cattle inhabiting 
this region have become immune to the disease, and are, therefore, not affected by 
it. Cattle passing through the Coast district to the interior, or brought to the 
Coast district from the interior, are apt to take the diseaseanddie. It was by the 
importation of cattle, therefore, which had passed through the dangerous Coast 
district that the disease was introduced into Rhodesia and into the Transvaal. 
On this map which I throw on the screen I have marked out the probable 
endemic area of this disease, and in the next slide the present distribution of the 
disease in the Transvaal is also marked out. 
Nature of the Disease.—This disease only attacks cattle, but in them is an 
exceedingly fatal malady: in every hundred cattle attacked only about five 
recover from the disease. The duration of the disease after the first symptoms 
have occurred is about ten days. 
The cause of the disease is a minute blood parasite called the Piroplasma 
parvum (Theiler). This parasite lives in the interior of the red blood corpuscles. 
I now throw on tiie sereen a representation of the blood from a case of 
Rhodesian Redwater, magnified about a thousand times, showing these small 
piroplasmata in the interior of the red blood corpuscles. Asin the case of so many 
of these blood diseases, the parasite causing it is carried from the sick to the 
healthy by means of a blood-sucking parasite. In this particular disease the tick 
