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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    the entire body. Effusions of lymph—the fibrine of the blood—take place into the follicles of the mucous mem- branes, as an effect, perhaps, in part of the overtaxing of these grand excretory organs, and partly because the fibrine itself is charged with the viateries morbi, and has probably also lost some portion of its vitality, which renders it unfitted to remain in the vessels. Dark-coloured blood, and which reniauis fluid even after death, from its defibri- nation, now flows in the vessels; and dysenteric purging also sets in, under which, as a rule, the animal quickly sinks. If, on the contrary, the vis vita should be sufficiently powerful to withstand so great an exhausting process, then the poison being cast off, and principally by the digestive canal, the patient slowly rallies, and the functions of the entire organism are gradually restored. Healthy fibrine again supplies the place of that which was lost, so that the blood will now clot when removed from the vessels, and be once more brought into a state to support the vitality of the prostrated organs. Ulceration of the mucous membranes, commencing in the follicles, may attend these processes, but it is not a necessary pathological condition of the pest. It is rather to be regarded as a sequence depending for its existence on the amount of contamination of the blood, the duration of the disease, and the diminished strength of the vital forces. In all this we have a great similarity to the pathology of the small-pox, but in that disease the external skin is the principal focus of the malady, while in rinderpest the mucous membranes or internal skin are its chief seat. Small-pox frequently proves fatal before the local symptoms are well established ; and so, indeed, does rinderpest, from the great amount of morbific matter with which the system is charged. Names given to the Disease.—Of all the terms which have been given to this malady, there is none which we are willing to adopt in preference to Rinderpest. It is the one which we have employed throughout this report, although it may be thought that it is too general in its application, and deficient also in explicitness, to be selected in preference to others which set forth something of the natin-e of the disease. The term, nevertheless, explains that the affection is a true cuMe])lc-0^'-'^ > ^^j besides this, being the one which is used throughout Germany, it is thoroughly understood in nearly every European state—a fact which gives it a volue above many others.
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