ABSTRACTS
La reglementation du trafic frontière [The Regulation of Frontier Traffic.]
PAVLOW, G. (1935). Office Internat. des Epizoot, 10, 303— 316.
With the rapid development of the means of communication and the impossibility
of any one country existing economically by itself and for itself, the intensive interna-
tional exchange of animals has come to be a necessity and with this has increased
the danger of diffusion of contagious diseases.
With the object of reconciling the two apparently irreconcilable obligations, namely
the extension of international commerce in animals and the limitation of epizootics, the
different countries have organized frontier veterinary services with a view to controlling
the importation and exportation of animals and animal products, but such control
measures are frequently envisaged from the standpoint of protectionism and political
considerations, the sanitary motives being only secondary.
In the beginning, the measures adopted are confined to a temporary closure of such
frontier points as are likely to serve as avenues for the introduction of epizootics. Later,
recourse is had to visits, quarantines, certificates of health and place of origin of
the animals concerned, and, finally, as ultima ratio, to the total closure of the frontie
A study of epidemiology reveals, however, that certain contagious diseases of
animals pass from one country to another across political frontiers, even when the latter
are most rigorously guarded. Thus, it has been established by evidence that foot-and-
mouth disease, sheep-pox, rabies and swine pest defy the rule of the " closed frontier ",
while dourine and glanders are introduced through the agency of the contraband of the
frontier, such as horses. On the other hand, sanitary cordons and absolute prohibition
along the frontier have been found to prevent the introduction of rinderpest and con-
tagious pleuropneumonia of bovines and horses.
In order to demonstrate the exactitude of the foregoing premises, the author
refers to certain observations made in the Balkans and particularly in Bulgaria.
[These observations, however, are of sufficient general interest to merit consideration
in the present abstract].
While it is difficult to produce actual data to demonstrate the transmission of
rabies from one country to another, the author, on a priori grounds, stresses the fact of
its transmission and expresses the view that it requires for its suppression not merely
bilateral but international efforts. In the Balkans, there is no area in the political
frontiers which may be regarded as protected in so far as rabies is concerned, the
economic structure of the Balkanic countries and the rural tradition inherent in them
being eminently favourable for the propagation of the disease.
The appearance of sheep-pox in Bulgaria had been effectively prevented during a
period of 5 months in 1934 by the adoption of veterinary police measures and by the
abandonment of virus injection (" clavelisation ") en masse as a prophylactic measure,
as this practice always tended to propagate the disease. By means of two instructive
maps, the author illustrates the probable manner of its re-importation on two subse-
quent occasions during the same year. On the first of these occasions, the foci of
infection were wholly disposed along the length of the Danube and on the second, the
infection had spread into the interior of the country, the appearance of the disease in
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