The Sun.
London, England, 1857-04-13 00:00:00

THE APPREHENDED MIIRAAIN.

As much alarm prevails on the subject of the
spread to 'this country of a murrain said to •be pre-
valent on the continent at this time, the following
communication ' made to tho General Board of
Health by Dr. Greenhow, who has been employed
by that department to inquire into the subject, may
be of use in allaying exaggerated apprehensions.
The communication isto be regarded as preliminary
to Dr. Greenhow's detailed roport„-now in prepa-
ration :

"To THE RIGHT HON. -W. MONSELL, M.P., PRESIDENT
OF THE GENERAL BOARD OF HEALTH, &O.
" Sir,—As great misapprehension and much unne-
cessary alarm have arisen from the reported existence
of a very fatal and contagious murrain among the horned
cattle of those continental States from which cattle are
chiefly imported into this country, it is desirable that
the real facts should be understood. The disease at pre-
sent or recently prevailing in Ho:stein, and the adjoin-
ing countiies is the ',pulmonary murrain,' and is iden-
tical with the lung disease' that has proved so destruc-
tive among the herds and dairies of Great Britain and
Ireland during the last 15 or 16 years.
" Although possessed of infectious properties in a
moderate degree, the lung disease' is known to arise
spontaneously under certain ill-understood canditions of
food and sea-on, and is not usually believed to have been
imported hither from abroad. It is almost universally
diffused throughout this country, having from -tithe to
time broken outin an epidemicform in particular localities,
and again disappeared, without any very obvious cause.
Being already quite as prevalent here as on the Conti-
nent, no danger exists to our cattle from the importation
of foreign cattle suffering from the disease.

" Notwithstanding this, all animals suffering from
this or any other serious disease that arrive from abroad
are f'etsined by the professional inspectors of the Board
of Customs, and, it necessary, immediately staughtered,
their bodies being effectually destroyed, if found to be
unfit for human food, or, if otherwise, then delivered to
the owner. The `lung disease' is the only epidemic dis-
ease at present,prev?iling among the cattle in countries
from which hornedtattle are imported into Great Bri-
tain.

" There is, however, another much more contagious
and fatal disease, called in Germany the ‘Rinder-pest,'
or Steppe murrain, which appears to have been con-
founded with the lung disease, but which, with one or
two trivial exceptions, does net at present exist in any
part of Germany or the west of continental Europe.
This 'Steppe murrain' is a totally different disease from
the pulmonary murrain, and is spontaneously developed
only in Bessarabia, Podolia, and other countries of
Southern Russia, from which it is never absent, and
whence it frequently spreads by contagion into• Poland,
and sometimes into Prussia and Austria.

"The most stringent measures are employed by the
Russo-Polish authorities, and by the Governments of
Austria and Prussia, to exclude this form of murrain
from their respective territories. A regulation was pub-
lished in Poland on the 9th of May, 1856, ordering the
indiscriminate slaughter of all beasts that should exhibit
any symptoms of the disease, under which, according to
a recent return, 20,000 animals have already been
slaughtered.
" Independent of these measures in the interior of the
country, quarantine stations have been established on
the Russo-Polish frontier, where beasts coming from the
East are detained for three weeks. Similar measures
for the exclusion and extirpation of the disease, should it
show itself within those countries, have long been in
force on the frontier of Austria and Prussia. In Aus-
tria the infected cattle are immediately killed as soon as
they show any appearance of the murrain, their compa-
nions bein 4. kept in quarantine ; and regulations still
more stringent are enforced in Prussia, for both the dis-
eased animals and all other beasts that haveleen in con-
tact with them are there killed and buried eight feet
under ground, quicklime being thrown into the pits.
"These regulations have been most sternly enforced,
and not only has the importation of cattle from Poland,
where the murrain is at present believed to exist, been
prohibited, but rags, hides, hoofs, hay, wood, and simi-
lar articles likely to have been in any way connected
with cattle, and all persons suspected of having trans-
actions with cattle, have been forbidden to cross the
frontier. To enforce these regulations detachments of
troops have been stationed alone. the frontier at all the
points of egress from Poland below Thorn.
"Notwithstanding these precautions e the murrain
occasionally passes into Austria and Prussia, and intel-
ligence has been received by our Government that it has
recently been imported into both these monarchies. It
has been conveyed into Silesia, iu the neighbourhood of
Breslau and Oppeln, by means of diseased cattle said to
have been purchased in'Galicia, but has not spread into
any other Prussian province, and has, in fact, thus far
been confined to the oxen of the infected herd. Most
effective measures have been taken to arrest the disease,
'and, judging from the experience of last year, there is
every reason to hope that its propagation will be pre-
vented, and its extinction secured.'
"As soon as the murrain was known by her Majesty's
Government to have reached Kowno, Tauroggan, and
other places in the vicinity of the Prussian frontier, an
order in Council was issued forbidding the importation
of cattle, and of bides, horns, hoofs, fodder, or other
articles likely to be vehicles for conveying the contagion
into this county, from any port in the Baltic east of
Denmark, thus preventing all possible danger of the im•
portation of this disease, so long as it shall be confined
to the eastern frontier districts of Prussia. In addition,
however, to this precaution, the greatest watchfulness
over the importation of cattle is maintained by the
veterinary inspectors of the Board of Customs, both at
London and the other ports of importation,—I have the
honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
"E. HEADLAM GREENHOW,' M.D.,
Lecturer on Public Health at St. Thomas's
Hospital, &a.
"London, April 1.1.'!