160 
RINDERPEST. 
effects, satisfactorily estimated ; but the failure to exclude the plague- 
gcnm implies the steady and constant increase of the poison, by myriads 
at each successive generation, so long as victims are available for de¬ 
struction , and unless ruthlessly stamped out, it will be far more widely 
spread, incomparably more destructive, and have far better prospects 
for perpetuation at the expiration of a decade, or a century, than at the 
end of the first year. If agriculturists throughout the length and 
breadth ol the land could be aroused to a sense of the vital importance 
of this subject, and to pledge every one of their Congressional represen¬ 
tatives to use his best influence to effect an improvement, we might soon 
hope to have legislation on this subject emanating from an intelligent 
source, our shores safely guarded against the importation of exotic 
plagues, and successful efforts inaugurated for the extinction of those 
that have been already introduced. 
NO SPONTANEOUS GENERATION IN EUROPE. 
We know nothing of the primary origin of rinderpest, nor the con¬ 
ditions in which it is generated de novo. In the last century its native 
habitat was supposed to be the plains of Hungary ; later, the steppes of 
Moldavia and Wallachia were charged with generating it; still more 
recently, it has been referred to the marshy spots in the extensive Kirg¬ 
hiz steppes ; and now, Councillor of State Unterberger, the veterinary 
professor at Dorpat, who was charged by the Russian Government with 
the investigation of the subject, with a view to the definite extinction of 
the pestilence, reports that at no point in European Russia can the dis¬ 
ease be found to arise spontaneously, and that the same remark is prob¬ 
ably true of the Asiatic portion of the empire. The malady is known 
among the Tartars as tchouma , their name also for a malevolent deity ; 
and as this name has been retained by nearly all adjacent nations (Rus¬ 
sia, tchouma ; Poland, Dzuma ; Persia, Afghanistan and Turkey, taoun . 
Thibet, chooneah ), it seems to point to Tartary as its probable source'. 
In China, where it prevails continuously, it has another designation, 
lowpeng —belly sickness—a nominal distinction which may imply an 
independent origin of the disease in that country. 
Into the neighborhood of Lassa, Thibet, it is yearly imported from 
the west by yaks and sheep sent for salt ; and in Hindoostan, though 
widely prevalent, it seems also to have an exotic origin. All this is only 
important as showing that the malady has its origin and point of depar¬ 
ture in Central or Eastern Asia, and that, in spite of this, it has pre¬ 
vailed for centuries uninterruptedly in Europe, and has spread more or 
