An essay on the cattle murrain and poleaxe murder, or Science and art in the 19th century : including a brief statement of the comparative meaning of the terms rinderpest, plague, and the more appropriate word murrain, and succinct remarks on the origin, nature, property, character, type, theory, pathology, symptoms, cause, effect, and treatment by preventive and curative remedies : dedicated, by permission, to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of London / by William Webber.

  • Webber, William, 1800-1875.
Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the cattle murrain and poleaxe murder, or Science and art in the 19th century : including a brief statement of the comparative meaning of the terms rinderpest, plague, and the more appropriate word murrain, and succinct remarks on the origin, nature, property, character, type, theory, pathology, symptoms, cause, effect, and treatment by preventive and curative remedies : dedicated, by permission, to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of London / by William Webber. 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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    us as little prepared, and the remnant (if there be any) as easy a prey, if sanatariums be not provided. Will no one, of our many opulent ones, come forward, stand in the breach, and start a sauatarium, where competent wrestlers with disease may throw down the armour of pretension, and be able to say afterwards, like Ajax, “ Speetemur agendo ” ? In 1745, when the lethargic influence of wealth, or the intoxication of prosperity was not so overpowering, £135,000 was voted by the then Government, but our Government has, while the evil is rapidly pursuing its destructive course, to wait for Parliament, and as Par- liament is holiday making, the Council can only contribute a professor who professes that he can do nothing but kill as a means of cure, and order quick burial of our beef in the shroud of ignorance. Sick with this slaughtering of animals, so desirable to be kept alive, I go on to say a word or two upon slaughter-houses, which ought, like cow-sheds, to be at once banished from all towns, in which there should only be allowed suitable markets for meat. Clean as I found them, they are necessarily store-houses of much that is calculated to do mischief. But these, like the other malignant nuisances I have pointed to, are waiting, I suppose, the coming into operation of an Act of Par- liament passed, through the instrumentality of Lord Lincoln, about twenty-two years ago, for the abolition, in thirty years from that date, of all noxious trades in the city, or metropolis, I cannot remember which, but I think it will be found that such an Act fortunately exists; but far more fortunate would it have been if twenty years had been made the time for its debut, which would probably have pre- vented much of the evil that has fallen upon our cattle, and this heavy penalty upon the time of my readers. As that act is coming tardily, while the destruction of disease is going on rapidly, necessity loudly demands that we should act in earnest, and without further delay set about taking “ the Bull by the horns” (kill the disease, not the animal), and act as though we meant to put an end to the destruction before all our cattle be gone, and our meat be taken away.