AN UNUSUAL CASE OF CHRONIC RINDERPEST WITH
            SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE CARRIER
                        PROBLEM IN THIS DISEASE

                                                BY

                 CAPT. S. C. A. DATTA, B.Sc, M.R.C.V.S.,

                    Temporary Veterinary Research Officer,

                                              AND

                        V. R. RAJAGOPALAN, G.M.V.C.,

                                    Veterinary Inspector,
            Imperial Institute of Veterinary Research, Muktesar.

                (Received for publication on 31st August 1932.)
                                       [(With five charts.)

                                       INTRODUCTION.

Since the earliest times rinderpest has exercised the resources of the scientist
and has formed the subject of extensive investigations in many countries on account
of the very severe economic loss that it inflicts. Some workers have gone so far as
to state that an outbreak " may even result in the almost complete extinction of
animals in large territories ". However, great uncertainty still exists with regard
to several important aspects of its incidence, causation and control. Among the
many problems that still await the verdict of the future, the question of the nature
of the virus, the seat of its multiplication and the duration of its viability in the
various organs of a recovered animal are by no means settled. When one studies
the text-book description of the disease one is liable to gather the impression that
this affection occurs invariably as an acute, fulminating type of febrile infecting
disease, which is capable of being spread over distances in almost every imaginable
manner, as will be seen from a statement of Law [ 1902 ]. " All the secretions of
the diseased animal are apparently infecting, and the virus possesses great vitality
so that the channels of infection are almost endless. It is carried in the manure,
washed in streams and drains, dried up on hay, straw, feathers and other light
objects, or in dust, and blown about by the winds, left in stables, in feeding and
watering troughs, in railroad cars, steamboats and ferryboats, loading banks and
yards; it is carried in the fresh bristles, in hides and bones, in halters and harness,
on waggon shafts and poles, on goads, on boots and coats of men and the feet of
dogs, birds and other animals, on the wheels or vehicles, various infected products,
the runners of sleighs and by vermin and wild animals". On the other hand,

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