162 
RINDERPEST. 
i 
VITALITY OF THE CONTAGION. 
Though easily destroyed when its minute atoms are brought into in¬ 
timate contact with the air—as in the cases above related—the same does 
not hold good in conditions in which the materials are closely packed, 
and where the air is excluded. Camper and Vic d’Azyr successfully 
inoculated the virus from an ox that had died of rinderpest, and had 
been buried three months. Weiss inoculated the virus successfully after 
. it had been preserved for six years; and Hering also indorses the idea 
of the vitality of six-year old virus. It is not stated how such virus was 
preserved, but it was doubtless in capillary tubes, from which all air 
was perfectly excluded—a condition in which virulent fluids may be 
preserved almost indefinitely. Thus Rempach and Sergejew pre¬ 
served the virus for over a year, and then inoculated it successfully. On 
the other hand, Adami has shown by experiments that a three days’ ex¬ 
posure in thin layers to the open air and the rays of the sun, at ordinary 
temperatures, will render it impotent. Franck found that the discharge 
fiom the nose placed upon a woolen cloth and exposed to the air for 
six days, was no longer infecting. Munnicks found that this material 
placed in a bottle simply corked, was inactive on the fourth day, having 
commenced to putrify; its virulence persisted to the eighth day in a 
hermetically-closed vessel, and to the twelfth day in a vacuum. Jessen 
who made a special study of this subject for the Russian Government, 
has stated that blood and secretions from the eyes preserved in tubes, 
or between plates of glass, were still infecting on the seventeenth, the 
twentieth, and in one case, on the thirtieth day. This last case, it will 
be observed, is an instance of preservation away from contact with the 
air, and does not in the least invalidate those of Adami, Francks, 
Munnicks, etc. It is well established, that when exposed to air, fre¬ 
quently renewed, in microscopic particles, or thin layers, and at ordinary 
temperatures, the poison is rapidly decomposed and rendered non-jn- 
fecting , whereas, when air is excluded, it may be preserved active for 
an indefinite period. 
A low temperature serves only to preserve the potentiality of the 
poison, by retarding decomposition; and frozen products have often 
conveyed the disease when thawed out. Ampach records the case of 
manure from diseased cattle, spread upon the fields in January, and 
which infected the oxen used to plow in it, after the frost had left the 
ground in April. A high temperature is, however, fatal to its power 
and in experiments, 131° Fahr. has been found to render the matter 
