356 Sanitary Police and the Cattle-Plague. 
ditions, it is possible to prevent the importation of Russian cattle 
into Germany, this is not the case with the Austro-Hungarian 
empire, the frontiers of which, measuring more than 120 leagues, 
are difficult to close against smugglers, and the Steppes of which 
are characterized by cattle of the same race as the Steppes of 
Russia. Moreover, the Russian cattle furnish a considerable 
number of those required on the markets of the large towns, and 
for fattening in the great distilleries of Gallicia. Vienna alone 
consumes more than 80,000 head per annum. In this state of 
affairs, the Conference was of opinion that it was not possible to 
close the frontiers of Austria against the importation of cattle from 
Russia ; but that these beasts must not enter without restraint, 
and that it is necessary to continue to submit them, as heretofore, 
to a quarantine of ten days before they are allowed to continue 
their route towards the localities for which they are destined. 
I abstain from entering here into any details of the measures 
which have been proposed with a view to render these quarantines 
as efficacious as possible, and to submit the imported animals to 
a rigorous inspection, whether their immediate destination be 
the slaughter-house or the feeding-byre attached to a distillery. 
Doubtless these measures cannot give any certain guarantee 
against the cattle-plague, but they must certainly diminish the 
chances in favour of it, because it is more advantageous for Austria 
to permit the importation of Russian cattle than to prevent it. 
Having once resolved the important question of the commer- 
cial relations of Russia with the adjacent countries, the Confer- 
ence endeavoured to establish the principles which ought to serve 
as a basis of uniform regulations for all countries in which the 
cattle-plague cannot be introduced, propagated, or maintained 
otherwise than by contagion. 
Thus if, in countries where the cattle-plague is only an acci- 
dent which can be rendered as transient as possible, the guarantee 
is given by the respective governments that they will adop' 
against it measures everywhere identical, and the certain efficacy 
of which, when they are rigorously and scrupulously applied 
experience has proved, there will no longer exist any reason fo 
the interruption of commercial relations between those countries 
even when the presence of the plague has been detected in om 
or more of them. 
Now, what are the measures, the application of which in ; 
uniform manner can, from the commercial point of view, giv' 
this guarantee of impunity to the countries in which tlv 
cattle-plague has made an accidental invasion, and has appearei 
in isolated localities? 
The following are those which are most essential : — 
Immediate slaughter, under rules as to inelemnity, of a! 
