RINDERPEST. 
241 
temperature of 200° Eahr., for half an hour, in an oven. Brushes, 
buckets, forks, and other utensils, may be thoroughly washed with soap 
suds, or all, excepting the brushes, may be sponged with a strong solu¬ 
tion of caustic soda; or the carbolic acid, or chloride of lime solution, 
t , 
used for the surface of the animals, may be freely applied to these also. 
t * 
SHIPS. 
These, like all other means of conveyance, should be thoroughly 
disinfected, where there is the ground of suspicion that they have carried 
animals suffering from rinderpest. In Europe, in time past, railroad 
cars and ships have been among the most prolific sources of this affec¬ 
tion. Cattle from healthy localities* transported in uncleaned wagons, 
were seized with the disease a day or two after reaching their destina¬ 
tion ; and this was so constantly repeated that a general system of dis¬ 
infection has been adopted for all articles used in cattle traffic. With 
vessels engaged in the transatlantic trade, no such universal system is 
necessary. Infected ships, carrying cattle, would contaminate them so 
that the disease would be developed in mid-ocean, and would be only 
too evident on their arrival. The disinfection of ships, therefore, may 
be safely confined to such as have lost animals, presumably from disease 
in transit, and to such as arrive with sick animals on board. Ships that 
have-been employed, at no distant date, in carrying animals, fresh meat, 
hides, unmelted fat, or other fresh animal products, or hay or straw from 
an infected country, would be in equal need of disinfection, before they 
were again used lor the conveyance of ruminants; but unless they were 
to be employed for our internal trade, their disinfection would not come 
under our present subject—the preservation of home stock.* 
* In the last article on this subject, when mentioning the importation of the lung plague by- 
means of a Short-horn cow, Austria should have been printed Australia. 
