NationalLibraryOfScotland/medical-history-of-british-india huggingface dataset:
30
the sick; young calves become affected by sucking a sick mother.
Lemaitre has observed the infection of a bull consequent on his bulling a
sick cow, although the earlier symptoms of the disease were not manifest
at the time. Lastly, may not the intrauterine transmission of Rinder-
pest not be considered to be established by the large number of abortions
which occur in sick animals ? Neuhauss has observed intrauterine
contagion accompanied by the development of the disease in the young
animal. To recapitulate then, although contagion may be accomplished
by inhalation, by accidental inoculation, and by heredity, we must look
to the digestive organs as playing the principal role in this respect, they
most frequently receiving the contagion through the medium of the food
and drink. This point, which has been brought forward by numerous
observers, is now admitted by all. Therefore, in epizootics of Rinder-
pest, it behoves us not to seek the cause of the propagation so much in
atmospheric influences.
Species susceptible to Rinderpest.—This disease is not exclusively
confined to ruminants. The Bovine species is undoubtedly more
subject to it than others, and it is in it that we meet with the disease
in the greatest intensity and with the most clearly marked manifesta-
tions, with the most decided virulence, and generally in the gravest
form; but it is none the less true that the disease may be trans-
mitted to the Ovine and Caprine species in the following order as
regards degree of receptivity, viz.,—(1) Bovine, (2) Ovine, (3) Caprine.
Cases have been observed which demonstrate the possibility of the
transmission directly from the ox to the sheep and goat ; and also
similarly from the sheep and goat to the ox. These facts should be
kept in mind, because it is rare to find only one species of animal
on a farm, in a village or locality, there generally being specimens
of the three cited species always present. Rinderpest is less severe in
the sheep and goat; it is also less characteristic in its symptoms, which
are less numerous and less pathognomonic; the percentage of deaths
from this malady is far less in these animals. But sheep and goats
affected with it nevertheless constitute a very dangerous element in the
propagation of the malady, more especially in the Himalayas, where these
animals are almost constantly on the move from higher to lower levels and
vice versâ in search of pasturage, and it becomes necessary to prevent it
in them if possible. The malady is very commonly observed in the
buffalo, in which it is very fatal in India. The yak also suffers from a
very severe form of the disease, as do all his crosses with the cow, and it
is very fatal in them. In the year 1890 the disease was carried by the
pack animals from the Kulu valley in the Punjab into Lahoul, and
attacked the yaks and their progeny there in all the villages to Kyelang,
leaving but one or two animals alive in its track. This was at an
elevation of about 12,000 to 13,000 feet above sea level. The camel
31
also suffers very severely from the disease, it being very fatal in him ;
numerous instances of the disease in this animal have been cited by
various authorities, and some have come under my own personal obser-
vation. Antelope also suffer from the disease, as do Cervidæ generally.
The gooral and kakar or barking deer have been seen dying in large
numbers from this disease in the Himalayas. The auroch, peccary,
gazelle, and stag also contract the disease, as do also the Bubalus arni
and the Mithun and Tsain. It has been observed in the wild pig of
Sumatra, and has been transmitted experimentally to them. It may be
probable that such animals as the cat and poultry even may become
affected.
But it is in the Bovine species that the receptivity is greatest, al-
though all individuals of this species do not evince it to a similar degree.
It is true that certain individuals evince a greater predisposition to
contract the malady and to take a more severe form of it than others do.
Animals indigenous to the Steppes are no more predisposed to the
disease than others; if they have it more frequently than others, it is
because the epizooty is never extinct in the country ; and the same is
true in some districts in India, for instance, Kotkhai, Seoraj, Kulu,
Kangra, Assam, etc. In the Russian Steppes, however, whether it is that
the affection has lost some of its proper virulence or whether the animals
evince a greater natural resistance, or one acquired as the result of
natural vaccination, the disease is often found to assume a benignant
form in these parts, whilst it is very grave when imported thence to
occidental countries, as has been frequently observed.
The disease in some parts of India, and notably in those parts which
are naturally dry, hot and arid, where the temperature of the air rises
very high, is frequently noticed to be of a far milder type than is the
case in other parts, notably the hills, and it has appeared probable that
dessication of the virus by the great heat and dryness influences its
virulence to a considerable extent, which would account for mild out-
breaks with large numbers of recoveries following the reception of the
virus into the system. Another point which may have some influence
is that the animals live almost entirely in the open air. There can be
no doubt that the receptivity of the small ruminants, sheep and goat,
is very much less than that of the ox. This fact has frequently been
brought forcibly to my notice in the Himalayas, where the " gaddi " shep-
herds keep enormous numbers of these animals, and where there are
numbers also in every village. In these parts I have seen the sheep and
goats kept side by side with affected animals of the Bovine species, feed-
ing over the infected pastures and drinking the same water, but it has
been only in exceptional cases that they have become diseased. The few
cases of outbreaks amongst flocks of sheep and goats mixed have been
slight, not spreading rapidly, considering the adverse conditions under
32
which the animals are kept, and causing but a small percentage of casu-
alties. It may be therefore safely said that it is not rare for them to
resist or to pay a very small tribute to contagion.
Man appears to run little if any danger either from the manipula-
tion of the debris, or from consumnig the flesh of animals dead of
Rinderpest, or from drinking their milk. It is a common practice in
some parts of India, and I believe also in the other countries, for the
people to eat the flesh of animals dead of the disease, and no bad conse-
quence has ever been reported from people having done so. Dogs and
soliped animals appear to be equally refractory.
Immunity and preventive inoculation.—Animals which have
recovered from the disease acquire immunity from a future attack,
according to some authors, for the remainder of their lives, but at least
for a period of six years. I have had some instances brought to my
notice of animals having a second attack after a lapse of seven years,
and one instance of three working bullocks belonging to a planter
in the Kullu valley having a second attack, to which they succumbed
six years after the first. Other observers have found animals immune
after seven years. Mr. Hallen, Inspector-General, Civil Veterinary
Department, relates a case of three bullocks which had been attacked
with the malady seven years previously, being stalled with animals
suffering from the disease, eating their rejected forage, etc., and
resisting contagion. However this may be, the consensus of opinion is
that an animal once attacked and recovered does not take the disease
again. The knowledge of this fact is found amongst cattle owners
throughout the length and breadth of India, even in the remotest parts
of the Himalayas, where the people are, as a rule, most ignorant and
superstitious. An animal which has recovered from the disease in those
parts where it is enzootic is worth double or treble what an unprotected
one is, and the people are only too anxious to secure them.
Animals which escape death after inoculation with the virus, as it is at
present occasionally imperfectly carried out, acquire immunity. Rinder-
pest then leaves after it a peculiar condition of the organism which
renders the animals which have been the subject of it proof against a
second attack for a long, though apparently somewhat variable, period
of time.
These facts being within our knowledge and generally accepted, it
would have been strange if some efforts had not been made to produce a
mild form of the disease in animals, which would leave them immune
without running any risk of the inoculation proving fatal. The dis-
covery of such a virus would, of course, be of the utmost value in a
country like India, where methods of suppression are most difficult to
carry out. Armed with an effective protective virus, the lives of many
thousands of animals could be saved from this courge to agriculture,
33
the position of the Indian farmer and cowherd be infinitely bettered, and
the prosperity of the country much increased. We have for a long time
sought to confer immunity against rinderpest by inoculating either with
typhic virus or with cow-pox.
Inoculations with typhus virus have been made chiefly in Russia.
Thousands of experiments have been made by the Government of that
country, who are so deeply interested in the solution of the problem.
Various virulent materials have been used, notably the tears and the
nasal discharge. These materials were used sometimes in the fresh state,
at others preserved for a certain time. They were diluted with water,
glycerine ; cultivated after the method indicated by Pessina; it has
been sought to mitigate or attenuate them by passing them through the
organism of the goat and sheep, but none of these attempts have
succeeded, and after several years of experiments the official commission
nominated terminated its operations in 1864, by saying that they were
constrained to close the establishments of Orenberg and Kerson, and to
abandon as useless any new attempt at inoculation, seeing that, so far,
the mortality due to inoculation has been nearly as great as that from
natural infection. Nevertheless, in 1870-71, when the disease deci-
mated our cattle in France, Jacques Valserres, amongst others, sought to
resuscitate the practice by publishing the ideas of a century before
(1746) ; by Dodson at the time of the great outbreak in England, and
in 1815 by Dupuy. Happily they did not find a sufficient number of
proselytes.
Since these attempts were made great progress has been made in the
study of contagious disease, notably as regards the attenuation of virus,
and it has been sought to apply the new methods of attenuation of
virus to that of rinderpest. Thus, in the summer of 1881, Semmer
was sent with Professor Ranpalle to the south of Russia to apply M.
Toussaint's method of attenuation. From some experiments we have
made, says Semmer, it appears that by ten minutes' heating at 55º
C. the contagion of rinderpest is completely destroyed. About 30
grammes of blood heated to 55° C. and nasal discharge treated in the
same way were injected into the skin of healthy animals. No im-
munity against natural contagion resulted; four calves thus inoculated
were placed amongst sick animals in a closed place and died from
rinderpest. A temperature of 55° C. is therefore too elevated for
attenuation (Neumann). Attempts at inoculation by Tonssaint's method
were made in Egypt under the direction of M. Piot; twelve animals in-
oculated resisted natural contagion (Echo de Sociétés, etc., 1883)
These results were encouraging, and it was hoped would bear fruit, but
nothing has yet come of it. During the epizooty in England,
1865-66, Dr. Murchison assimilated variola and rinderpest as lancisi,
and Ramazinni did at the beginning of last century and recommended
D
34
vaccination. But observation soon proved that the two maladies ex.
ercised no influence on each other.
It has been advanced that there was antagonism between the
development of aphthous fever and rinderpest, but this has been disproved.
With regard to the experiments which have already been carried out,
numerous inoculations were made in Russia during the last century, as
well as in the present one. The method adopted has been to take
material from a case of the naturally-contracted disease, preferably from
a mild one, and to pass it successively through a number of animals, with
a view of weakening or attenuating its virulence, if possible, and by
inoculation of the attenuated virus to produce a mild form of the disease,
but one still capable of conferring immunity. This method of successive
cultivation in animals has been carried on to the fifteenth generation,
but it is found that the material so treated very often induces, on
inoculation, as virulent and fatal an attack of the disease as the original
virus. Inoculated rinderpest induced in this manner comports itself in
the same fashion, and is just as severe as the naturally-contracted
disease, being frequently fatal. The mortality appears to vary in
different countries, but it is always considerable. In Russia it varies
from 4 to 60 per cent. of the animals inoculated.
Another method which has been tried is that of selecting animals
which have the disease in a very mild form and inoculating others with
the tears, saliva, etc., with the idea that by so doing a mild attack of the
disease would be induced; but the argument on which this method was
adopted has no scientific or practical basis, and is erroneous, for, as is
well known to be the case in this and other diseases (for it has already
been stated that animals suffering from a mild attack may be the means
of inducing the most virulent outbreak amongst other cattle), the benign-
ity of the disease appears to depend more on individual idiosyncracy,
previously-acquired immunity, or some temporary attenuation of virus
which recuperates itself when passed through a susceptible animal. A
good example of this is to be found in the fact that attenuated authrax
regains its pristine virulence when passed through suitable subjects.
Supposing, then, that the mild attacks were due to the introduction of
virus attenuated in this unknown manner, when we consider that the
bovine species is the one most susceptible to the disease and forms the
best soil for the growth and development of the virus, we should have
more grounds for supposing that the attack induced by inoculation from
the mild case would be more severe in its intensity when introduced
into the system of an animal not having the peculiar individual idiosyn-
cracy. However this may be, and whatever view may be taken of
the case, it cannot be denied that the results of the methods already tried
have been unsatisfactory in the extreme, and their adoption has never
been seriously considered in Europe; and in countries in the East where
35
they have been tried, they have been completely abandoned as not only
useless, but harmful, from the fact that they multiplied the centres of
contagion.
Up to the present time the recent attempts which have been made
in Russia on the one hand by Semmer and in Egypt by Piot have not
led to any practical results, and protective inoculation has not yet
reached the state of perfection which would permit of its being
recommended for general adoption as a means of conferring immunity
against rinderpest. That this state may be reached there is every
reason to believe, and the results of the investigations which are to be
carried out in India are looked forward to with much interest.
Treatment.—The treatment of this disease, as is well known, is
seldom followed by very satisfactory results in Europe, whatever the
system adopted, and the numbers of recoveries bear but a very small
percentage to the numbers of deaths from the disease. This is true also
in India as regards the more severe types of the disease, and treatment
must always give way to suppression by isolation, segregation, and like
measures of preventing spread to other animals in the same and neigh-
bouring herds. Moreover, another point which militates against the
adoption of the treatment of cattle in this country is that of expense.
If we consider that with treatment the percentage of recoveries is very
small comparatively, the small number of recoveries which may be attri-
buted to the action of the drugs administered must bear the expense of
the treatment of the whole number; and in cases where the value of the
animals is but small, it will be found that the treatment scarcely pays.
There are cases, however, where treatment is of great value, when the
disease is of a mild type for instance, and there is reasonable hope that
the number of recoveries will be large; for we must not lose sight of
the fact that an animal recovered is proof against the disease probably
for the rest of its life, and therefore a great acquisition in a country
where the disease is enzootic. Under favourable circumstances, then, we
may adopt such treatment as may seem to us from the pathology of
the disease to be most suitable, always bearing in mind that it is
necessary, if satisfactory results are to be obtained, that it must be as
inexpensive and the drugs used to be obtained in the bazaars of the
towns or villages where the disease is prevalent.
When we consider that the more important lesions have their seat
in the digestive tract, and that the disease is of a typhoid or typhus nature,
we have something at least to guide us in the treatment. The first
point to be attended to is the state of the digestive system, and the next
is to support the strength of the animal and to limit as much as may be
the lowering diarrhœa and dysentery which weaken and destroy the animal.
In the first stage, where the changes in the abomasum and intestine
have led to constipation, the bowel being in a more or less inert
D 2
36
condition, it is generally considered advisable to administer a laxative
in order to clear out the organs of all the semi-digested food, which, as
we are aware, if allowed to remain, forms toxic materials which, when
absorbed into the system, give rise to serious disturbance and aggravate
the disease, and moreover irritate the digestive mucous membranes with
which they remain in contact. This, then, appears to be logically reason-
able, and we may use any laxative which it may seem to us most
desirable, taking care that its action be not too pronounced or the nature
of the laxative too irritant. Veterinary Surgeon Thacker, who has treated
some 2,541 cases of the disease with great success, always used for this
purpose two or three ounces of finely-divided sulphur in two quarts
of gruel and administered morning and evening until some slight laxa-
tive effect is observed. The report of the Indian Cattle Plague Commis-
sion shows that they agree in this particular, and states that "mild
laxatives in the early stages are undoubtedly advantageous, but that
severe purgation is positively harmful." Admitting this first step in
treatment, then, and still bearing in mind the typhoid nature of the
disease, and the lesions found in the digestive tract, the importance of
withholding solid food will be evident, considering the inability to digest
it which must result from the state of the absorbent mucous membrane,
and the consequent irritation which must result from its introduction into
the canal. Too much stress, then, can scarcely be laid upon the import-
ance of withholding solid food and substituting for it fluid and easily-
digested nutriment; milk and eggs, to which has been added some
papaiya fruit, would be the most suitable diet were it not that in many
cases papaiya cannot be obtained and milk and eggs are too expensive a
form of diet for animals of little value. We have, then, to turn to the
next best fluid food, which is gruel of various kinds. The Indian Cattle
Plague Commissioners recommend thin rice-water.
When the stage of diarrhœa comes on, or before it rather, we may
use with much benefit Veterinary Surgeon Thacker's mixture, which has
in my hands been in some cases attended with good results:—
Camphor
Datura
Chiretta
Arrack
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
2 drs.
2 „
1 dr.
4 ounces
added to two quarts of gruel given morning and evening.
When diarrhœa comes on it is not generally advisable to try to stop
it immediately, but rather to allow a little time for some of the virus
to be thrown off by this means; but at the same time our best endea-
vours should be used to prevent, if possible, its running on too long and
debilitating the animal too much and thus impeding recovery, and so,
after it has existed for about 24 hours, Mr. Thacker and others recom-
mend that opium 1 dr. and catechu 3 drs. be given. Veterinary Surgeon
37
Marriott found very good results follow the use of opium in large
doses in this disease; and I have used a compound of hyoscyamus and
opium with good results, but it is too expensive for general use. If the
diarrhœa and dysentery progress, we may with benefit supplement the
above medicines with decoction of baël fruit, which, as is well known, is
almost a specific in these dysenteric diseases. Veterinary Surgeon Gunn
recommends the following method of preparing this decoction:—Take
4 seers (8lbs.) of baël fruit, break them up and boil in 12 seers of
water; strain whilst hot through a coarse piece of cloth, and place the
liquid in a cool place. Give one seer of this fluid every three hours, so
long as the diarrhœa and dysentery last. If this be very persistent,
carbolic acid may be tried.
With regard to the skin eruption, the pustules should be washed
and some mixture or liniment be applied to keep off the flies.
During the whole course of the treatment, the strength must be
maintained by gruel and alcoholic stimulants carefully administered.
It will be seen from the above that treatment is a troublesome matter,
entailing a considerable amount of labour; but in certain cases, as in
those treated by Veterinary Surgeon Thacker, who carefully watched
and treated through the different stages of the disease 2,541 cases, of
which 1,763 recovered, the labour was amply repaid. It appears from
the report of the Indian Cattle Plague Commission that it was their
opinion that 20 per cent. of animals which would otherwise have died
may be saved by treatment.
Prevention and suppression.—It has already been observed that
in the present state of our knowledge, the limitation of this disease by
protective inoculation cannot be seriously considered, but at the same
time it is to be hoped that in time the virus may be by some means
attenuated to such a degree as to become a harmless protective medium
conferring immunity. Protection therefore being out of the question, the
whole of our attention and energy should be given to repression and
prevention of the spread of the disease from village to village or from
house to house. Nothing can be more deplorable than to watch this
malady spreading from village to village, and carrying off numbers
of cattle, without any effort being made to stop it, when a little exer-
tion on the part of those in authority would easily limit its ravages.
The conditions under which cattle exist in this country are so varied
that it is impossible for us to lay down any fixed plan of action, as what
would be applicable to one locality would not work in another, so that
it must be left to the intelligence of those who are entrusted with the
duty of repression. The difficulties which are encountered in certain
parts in the matter of the segregation of animals in the same village are
so great as to be almost insurmountable, and more especially is this the
case where the villages are small.