( 15 )
182. On the 31st August I received an urgent telegram from Muzaffarpur.
I proceeded there at once and met Mr. Toomey of the Kanti Indigo Concern, who
told me that Cattle plague had been raging on the estate since the 3rd August;
that he had lost 86 head of valuable cattle, and that some 400 or 500 head of
cattle had died in the neighbouring villages. He had heard that I wanted
to experiment with Rinderpest. I submitted to him the case for and against
Koch's method, as far as was known at the time, and he proposed in the most
P ublic-spirited manner that I should treat his animals. Therefore he is the
first person in India upon whose cattle modern Rinderpest treatment has been
employed.
183. Having decided to inoculate, the next thing was to procure suitable
material. It was obviously impossible to kill any cattle, owing to the religious
opinions of the people. Moreover, observations upon cases that had succumbed
during various outbreaks had shown me pretty clearly that the bile from
cases that had died in the usual way was very often unsuitable. Hence there
might arise an element of uncertainty which it was desirable to avoid.
184. Fortunately there is no objection to the slaughter of buffaloes which
are even used for sacrificial purposes. Some fair-sized buffalo calves were there-
fore procured. I inoculated them from a typical case of virulent rinderpest.
185. In due course these animals developed symptoms of rinderpest and
were shot on the 6th or 7th day. The bile was examined carefully with a
microscope and found to be good in each case.
The bile was injected in
10 c. c. m. doses into bullocks as follows:—
From Buffalo
Ditto
Ditto
Ditto
Ditto
No. 1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
12
28
32
21
14
cattle inoculated, branded
ditto
ditto
ditto
ditto
ditto
ditto
ditto
ditto
K
T 1—12
K
L
1-28
K
T 1 — xxxii
K
L 1--xxi
LK 1—xiv
Total 107. Average price of the buffalo calves was Rs. 5. Average number
of doses obtained from each was 21.4. All these animals were branded so
that we might follow the results of the experiment.
186. Though it was out of the question to catch and cast all these animals
for daily temperature-taking, the herd was very carefully watched by Mr. Toomey,
his assistants, the native herdsmen, myself and my assistant. We found that
two went rather lame from a swelling at the seat of inoculation, but none of
them suffered any loss of appetite or showed signs of disease.
187. The cattle are bred on the estate and Mr. Toomey has repeatedly
assured me that cattle plague had not been known in the factory or neighbour-
hood for many years. This points to the probability that none of the animals
had been rendered immune by a previous attack.
188. Professor Koch states that the bile injection confers immunity not
later than the 10th day.
189. In order to test the immunity of these animals after the bile
injection, six bullocks were selected:—
Bullocks K/T 2 and 10 received each 20 c. c. m. of virulent blood subcutane-
ously 7 days after the bile inoculation.
Bullocks K/L 15 and 16 received respectively 10 and 20 c. c. m. of virulent
Li
blood 7 days alter the bile inoculation.
Bullocks K/L 1 and 2 received 10 and 20 c. c. m. respectively of virulent
blood 10 days after the bile inoculation.
190. The blood was from various cases of typical Rinderpest. The
temperatures, etc., wore carefully taken and registered, and the charts have
been submitted to the Director of Land Records and Inspector-General, Civil
Veterinary Department.
191. All these animals proved to bo immune.
192. In order to ascertain if the time required for immunity to develope
was appreciably less than seven days in Bengal, I inoculated two calves with
ten c. c. m. of bile, and five days afterwards tested them with 20 c. c. m. of
the same virulent blood used to test K/L 15 and 16.