RINDERPEST–CATTLE PLAGUE–TYPHUS.

Rinderpest is undoubtedly the most widespread and important of all
the diseases of cattle which are to be met with in India and Burma.
There are certain districts where the malady never ceases from one
year's end to another, but drags on its course, sometimes severe, at
others apparently dying out, but in reality only flickering and ready to
burst forth with renewed vigor at the first favourable opportunity. No
just estimate can be formed of the enormous numbers of animals which
annually perish from the disorder, as we have no accurate reports which
may guide us in so doing; but from my own personal experience I can
say that deaths from all other diseases to which bovine flesh is heir,
taken together, will not nearly equal those which it causes. It is the
custom in many parts of the Indian Empire to make light of the
damage done by epizootic diseases and to cloak them over as much as
possible; but such a policy can only emanate from weakness and a desire
to evade instead of facing and overcoming the obvious difficulties which
arise when the suppression or limitation of their spread has to be under-
taken. No one, I am sure, has a more accurate appreciation of what
these difficulties are than I have; but at the same time it is clear to me
that much can be done to limit spread, if they be faced and proper
measures adopted. It therefore behoves us to study this malady and
to make ourselves acquainted with what is known at the present time
regarding it.

Definition and general considerations.—Rinderpest is an epide-
mic, contagions, virulent general disease, infectious and very easily
transmissible from a diseased to a healthy animal. It is characterized
by groups of symptoms, which, although differing greatly in different
countries, enable us to diagnose the malady as a rule. Amongst the
more characteristic symptoms of this malady may be noted a low
typhoid form of fever, ushered in by trembling, shivering, or rigors, and
often also by muscular twitchings of certain groups of muscles. A dis-
charge from the eyes and nose, first watery and soon becoming mucous;
constipation at first, but in a few days followed by diarrhœa, and later
fatal dysentery. Congestion of the skin, and in numerous cases in this
country the eruption of pustules and papules on it, which has led some
observers to consider the disease to be of a varioious nature. These are the