50 
CATTLE DISEASE IN CHINA. 
by some as an almost conclusive proof that the diagnosis was 
incorrect. Of its contagious character I was myself fully 
satisfied during the rapid extension of the disease in Mr. 
Keele's sheds. The history of Mr. Warden's losses, and 
the deaths in the Hupeh Road, will probably be sufficiently 
convincing for my readers. That this particular feature of 
cattle plague has been less marked in Shanghai than in 
England cannot be regarded as an argument of much im¬ 
portance when viewed along with the pathological facts which 
can be adduced to prove the correctness of the diagnosis. 
For my own part I prefer to regard it rather as bearing 
favourably upon the opinion which I have elsewhere expressed, 
that the disease is probably at the present date as truly 
endemic in China as in Russia. If this can be proved, mo¬ 
difications in intensity, &c., follow nearly as a matter of 
course.* 
Quoting from Memorandum No. 2, I note that the period 
of incubation in this disease is probably under 10 days; this 
was inferred but not distinctly proved. The average duration 
from the date of manifest infection to the time of death 
varies, so far as my observations go, between 3 and 7 days; 
the average is probably correctly stated at 4 days. The 
symptoms exhibited vary within certain limits, differing in 
the early and advanced stages of the disease. With the 
onset of the malady there is loss of appetite, cessation of ru¬ 
mination, more or less distinctly marked pyrexia, depression 
of the vital energies, constipation, and a watery discharge 
from the eyes and nostrils. In the advanced stages consti¬ 
pation is exchanged for dysenteric purging, the discharge 
from the nostrils becomes purulent or blood stained, there is 
often an uneasy restlessness indicative of abdominal pain, 
the breathing is laboured, and with a further depression of 
the powers of life the extremities become cold. In milch 
cows the lacteal secretion is diminished from the first, and 
soon becomes entirely suppressed. I give one example from 
among many which I have had an opportunity of observing : 
cattle were closely confined to a paddock, which was afterwards ploughed, 
the old sheds were all pulled down and rebuilt, any timber employed a 
second time being first thoroughly charred; the yard was refilled with 
earth; disinfectants, especially carbolic acid, were freely used from first to 
last. 
* I need scarcely remind my readers here of the uncertain power of those 
influences which determine the spread of an epidemic. 
