236 
RINDERPEST. 
other kinds, is left more accessible to these rapacious animals, and is 
often carried otf by them to be devoured at leisure in the very buildings, 
yards or parks where cattle and sheep are kept. This should be a strong 
argument, not only against the use of such meat for human consumption, 
were any such wanted, but above all in favor of the most careful seclu¬ 
sion and guardianship of the carcasses, and for their early and thorough 
burial. 
FRESH HIDES INFECTING-DRIED HIDES NON-INFECTING. 
The question of the possibility of infection by imported hides is one 
of great and immediate interest to us, inasmuch as our tanners draw 
largely on the foreign market for their supplies. And here we must 
compliment the government for pursuing* a perfectly safe course in en¬ 
tirely prohibiting the importation of hides from the various infected 
countries. The order, as we shall see, is unduly stringent, but it is un¬ 
questionably better to have inflicted a temporary injury on the leather 
trade than to have run the risk of a wholesale infection of our flocks and 
herds. 
Of the virulence of fresh hides there can be no more question than 
of fresh carcasses or of flesh. The blood of the animal is virulent, and 
as this is contained in all of these products alike, all are infecting when 
newly removed from the carcass. Again, in rinderpest the skin is usually 
the seat of a specific eruption in which the poison is to a large extent 
concentrated. This is universally acknowledged, and it is needless to 
adduce illustrative instances. 
But in the case of hides, much more than carcasses or flesh, there 
comes up the question of the early destruction of the poison when ex¬ 
posed in thin layers to the action of the air. In addition to the remarks 
already offered as to the destruction of the virus by exposure, I may here 
adduce one or two more from Dr. Rawitsch, who was appointed by the 
Russian government to conduct inoculation experiments. 
On the 20th of June, 1863, Professor Jessen and myself obtained, at Sars Koge- 
Selo, virus fiom animals that were very sick ; on the 4th of July we arrived at Oren¬ 
burg and inoculated a number ot cattle with this virus, without producing anj T result. 
The same cattle were at a later period inoculated with fresh virus and contracted 
lindeipest. Many such cases occurred. Once we obtained some virus in a village, 
and inoculated with it a few hours later without producing any result. 
To return to the hides. The older observers are not in perfect 
harmony on this subject. Weith, Lorinzer and Spinola found infection 
to persist in hides no longer than the eighth day, and Camper until the 
sixth only. Layard states that rinderpest was imported into England in 
1745, in a parcel of distempered hides purchased in Zealand, where 
