Report on the catlle plague, or rinderpest : presented to the three national agricultural societies of England, Scotland, and Ireland / by James Beart Simonds.

  • Simonds, James B. (James Beart), 1810-1904.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the catlle plague, or rinderpest : presented to the three national agricultural societies of England, Scotland, and Ireland / by James Beart Simonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    secondary causes are in full operation to predispose animals to its influence; hence its continuance in the ill-ventilated, over-crowded, and badly-drained cow-sheds of the metropolis and other large towns, and on the cold retentive soils and undrained farms in the country, especially such as lie in ex- posed situations. Besides the special cause, or rather, perhaps, special com- bination of causes, which give origin to the enzootic form of pleuro-pneumonia, its appearance in a cattle-shied, or on a farm, is frequently traceable to the introduction of ncM'ly purchased animals, who bring the disease in a latent state with them; and which, on its declaring itself, extends by ordinary infection to those with whom they are located. Infection we hold to be one of the chief causes of the con- tinuance of pleuro-pneumonia for so many years among us, as every diseased animal, by virtue of the exhalations given off from its body, becomes a focus of the malady, and a new source, whence the poison, so to speak, is disseminated. The same fatality which marks the progress of pleuro-pneumonia here, attends it everywhere; and throughout the Continent it is looked upon as an incurable disease, and dealt with ac- cordingly. Its great fatality arises from the circumstance that the nature of the changes which take place in the lungs is such as immediately to arrest their functions as perfect aerifying organs, and soon to destroy, to a greater or less extent, the integrity of their structure. The true pathology of pleuro-pneumonia is among the quesiiones vexata of science. In this report we have not immediately to do with this ques- tion, still we may observe that the most eminent professors of veterinary medicine throughout Europe hesitate to declare, as some medical practitioners have done, and others also who have probably given but little thought to the subject, that the changes wrought in the lungs are altogether due to inflam- matory action. In 13elgium, in France, and in many parts of Italy, the disease is designated exudative pleuro-pneumonia—a name which, while it marks a peculiarity in the disease, implies, that it differs somewhat in its results from ordinary in- flammation of the lungs and their investing membrane, and which is correctly called pleuro-pneumonia. We have no hesitation in giving it as our opinion that the changes which are originally effected in the lung-tissue can take place otherwise than by inflammatory action. We observe, as the analogue of these changes, that in the advancement of the disease, the interstitial areolar tissue contiguous to the more affected parts of the organs, becomes primarily choked with