REPORT ON THE CATTLE OF SPAIN. 
181 
ih carrying them out. At Cordova there is a veterinary 
association, which has been established there for many years. 
Instruction is given in skilful treatment of cattle, &c., to all 
who attend their college. The chief professor there, Don 
Jose de Prado y Guillen, is a diligent and most intelligent 
student, full of earnest love of his art. He has written me 
an interesting memoir respecting his views upon the rinder¬ 
pest (views formed on his experience of Spanish cattle), and 
also a notice regarding the treatment of the bovine race 
throughout the Peninsula, of which the following note is a 
partial translation, and, in effect, a precis. 
Notes on the Rinderpest .—The dreadful cattle plague which 
is ravaging England and Germany has not attacked the large 
herds of these animals in Spain. It never has done so in its 
present rinderpest form, for on consulting the numerous 
essays of our old Spanish veterinary surgeons we find that 
though intimately acquainted with all the Spanish cattle 
diseases, they do not either directly or indirectly tell of it, 
showing that they did not know it; but our modern veteri¬ 
nary authors have given good translations from German and 
Russian medical works on the subject, therefore we quite 
understand what it is, and can safely assert that the rinder¬ 
pest has never yet been seen in any part of the Iberian 
peninsula. The cattle epidemics, which have raged some¬ 
time from 1709 till now, have all assumed quite a different 
character; and the absence of the present cattle plague from 
Spain is thus a most interesting subject and question. Why 
has it never visited us ? 
I fully believe that the chief reason is that we rarely, and 
in very small numbers, import any foreign cattle into Spain. 
There is comparatively little beef eaten throughout the 
country; more is produced than is consumed. Our exporta¬ 
tion, especially from the north and Gallicia, is considerable, 
and, in truth, our cattle importation is nil. The Gallicia and 
Asturias cattle find their way to France and to England, but 
none come thence to us. I fully believe that, from the power 
of contagion which is so strong in the real rinderpest, if one 
ox with any trace of that disease on him had been imported 
into Spain, and had come into contact with cattle of this 
country, the epidemic would have spread, just as happened at 
Padua, in Italy, in 1711, from a diseased ox (coming from 
Dalmatia) being introduced into the stalls of Count Borromeo, 
and thus causing the fearful murrain, W'hich at that time, 
almost ruined the pastoral wealth of the north of Italy. We 
are in hopes that the peculiar topographic character and con¬ 
figuration of our country may stand in the way of the pro- 
