280 
Supplement to the " Tropical Agriculturist [Oct. 1, 1894. 
of solids-not-fat present in genuine cows' milk. 
Then, as the processes for extracting the fat were 
further perfected, 9'2 and 90 per cent, were 
the minima successively adopted. Finally, the Milk 
Committee of the Society of Public Analysts, after 
analysing 283 samples of milk, between February 
1884 and May 1885, recommended that no sample 
of milk should be passed as genuine, which con- 
tained less than 8 - 5 per cent, of non-fatty solids. 
Of the six Colombo samples only No. 1 fell de- 
cidedly below this limit; but unless'a large 
number of analyses should prove this to have been 
a very exceptional case, I fear we cannot fix 
a minimum for Ceylon above 8 per cent., and 
it may possibly be even less.' r 
These analyses are valuable to those who 
have any interest in the production and 
even the consumption of milk. "The only really 
safe and satisfactory manner of examining milk, - ' 
says Dr. Wanclyn, in his treatise on mi/Ic analyses, 
" is by means of an analysis of it." This authority 
referring to the lactometer states : — "i am con- 
vinced that one of the most necessary steps to 
be taken in milk analysis is to abandon the use 
of the lactometer,'' and again with regard to 
another device for testing milk, "The creamoineter 
is at best a treacherous guide." Since these re- 
marks were writteu many other instruments for 
testing milk have been patented (e.g., the Babcock 
milk tester,) but though these are improvements 
on the appliances which have been superseded, 
they do not give as accurate results as chemical 
analyses do. Mr. Cochran's published analyses 
are thus particularly valuable records. 
We are glad to find that dairies under 
responsible managers are springing up in Colombo. 
There is no doubt that people (whether private 
householders or heads of such institutions as hos- 
pitals) will pay good prices for pure milk of good 
quality; and it is because this is so that we 
find new dairies being established, in which atten- 
tion is given to good feeding and general manage- 
ment, and that these dairies are found to be 
remunerative when properly worked. The Col- 
ombo Dairy Company of Park Grounds, B:imbala- 
pitiya, have lately had ( heir milk analysed by the 
city analyst, with the following results: — 
Fat . . 6'25 per cent. 6-43 per cent. 
Sugar and Casein 843 
Salts 
Total solids 
Water 
•82 
. 15-50 
84-50 
100-00 
9-17 
•70 
16-30 
83 70 
10000 
Non-fatty solids 9'25 „ 9-87 „ 
"The above results," says Mr. Cochran, "judged 
by English standards, indicate not only genuine 
milk, but milk of excellent quality." 
NOTES ON THE CATTLE MURRAIN OF 
CEYLON. 
In transmitting to us a copy of a pamphlet 
on Rinderpest or Cattle Plague, being one of 
a series published by the Civil Veterinary Depart- 
ment of India, the assistant to the Inspector- 
General of that department made a request that 
we should communicate to him any local ex- 
perience of the fell disease as it occurred in 
Ceylon. In a previous number of the Magazine 
we gave a summary of the exhaustive contents 
of the pamphlet itself, which we subsequently 
submitted to Mr. Veterinary Surgeon William 
Smith, now ot Belgravia Estate, as the best 
qualified person to annotate the pamphlet. Mr. 
Smith lias given ulmo4t a lifetime's study to 
the subject of cattle plague in Ceylon, and 
having been a large stock-owner, has had abun- 
dant opportunity for muking himself thoroughly 
acquainted with it in all its bearings. The notes 
which follow, though they were writteu as dis- 
connected remarks on the pamphlet, are still of 
inestimable value, and will no doubt be much 
appreciated by the veterinary authorities of India. 
We owe Mr. Smith our best thanks for permit- 
ting us to reprint his notes in the pages of 
the Agricultural Magazine : — 
Notes on Rinderpest on Cattle Plagie uy 
Mr. William Smith, M.K.C.V.S. 
Ceylon herds, from the earliest records of the 
Island as a British Possession, have l>een ravaged 
by Rinderpest, of my own personul knowledge 
for 38 years. This disease was identified, for 
the first time, by the Ceylon Cattle Commission 
of 1868, as identical with the Rinderpest of 
Europe, and so named by them (tide Indian 
Cattle Commission Report). I believe and main- 
tain that the disease is endemic, and liable 
to outbreaks whenever conditions, favourable to 
its development, are present. Being highly con- 
tagious it often assumes an epidemic form, after 
having been carried from a common centre and 
disseminated over large districts. I have been able 
in several instances to trace its origin, and have 
even predicted outbreaks which speedily followed 
when insanitary conditions have presented them- 
selves to me where cattle congregated. 
In my opinion the Rinderpest of this country 
has been a more fruitful cause of the poverty 
and misery we find prevailing among the agri- 
cultural population of Ceylon, than all the other 
vicissitudes incidental to their mode of life. 
Rinderpest in an epidemic form is most highly 
contagious and infectious, most subtile and in- 
sidious in its transmissability by any vehicle 
coming in contact with disease and brought 
sufficiently near healthy stock. An instance in 
my own experience : — I held a postmortem exa- 
mination on an animal which had died of Rinder- 
pest more than 100 miles from my house, had 
the clothes I was wearing at the time packed 
away in my dirty-clothes box, aud reached home 
two weeks after, when my servant unpacked the 
dirty-clothes box, hanging the contents on a 
rope stretched between two poles. Some six cattle 
I had passed under the rope and clothes while 
going to water ; and 12 days after all were dead of 
true Rinderpest. These cattle were near no other 
cattle, nor was the disease anywhere in the 
neighbourhood then or afterwards. 
The earliest pathognomonic symptoms of this 
disease are the peculiar twitchings of muscles, 
conjointly with the involuntary pharyngeal 
spasms (similating deglutition) which usher in 
each muscular tremor ; these with the rough 
staring coat afford sufficient evidence, should 
desquamations of the epithelium have in the 
least degree set ia. (Discharge of a watery nature. 
