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typhus of the ox, then, is a virulent, contagious, febrile, and non-recurring disease, with stupor and derangement of the nervous, respiratory, and digestive functions; leaving various changes in the respective organs of these functions, and chiefly in the intestines.

      This new definition seems to us to be more faithful and just than those hitherto given; and this, if needed, we could demonstrate.

      I do not disguise from myself that some of the opinions expressed in these generalities may, at first sight, appear strange and liable to objection. Thus, it may be argued that inoculation as a preventive treatment of typhous maladies is far from being a general law, applicable to every case; since in Russia, for instance, where this inoculation is practised every day, it completely fails in certain foreign herds, and they die of the consequences of the operation; and that this, therefore, might happen in England.

      To these objections we would reply, first, as regards the novelty of opinions expressed, that we have taken up the pen, because we had to write something different from what has already been published in known works, otherwise it would have been our duty to remain silent; and secondly, as regards the inefficacy of inoculation, that organic and vital phenomena have their principles and their laws, which are fixed and invincible, from which it is reasonable to deduce consequences and positive rules of conduct, which cannot yield to superannuated opinions or imperfectly executed experiments. To institute experiments indeed under the rigorous conditions of a logical and irrefutable demonstration, is not so easy a matter as may generally be thought.

      For our part, the principles deduced from strict observation are the basis on which we build, and if it so chance that we are baffled in our experiments we vary them indefinitely; and if still we are deceived in our hopes, we ascribe the miscarriage to our impotence, to inadequate means, and to the defective instruments which the physical and chemical sciences, still in their cradle as regards organic matter, supply for our use. Above all, we wish it to be remembered – "Scribo nec ficta, nec picta, sed quæ ratio, sensus, et experientia docent."

      CHAPTER II

The Origin and Causes of the Ox TyphusI

      I have drawn my conclusions as to the preventive treatment of typhus in the ox, from the knowledge I had acquired of its morbid phenomena, its nature, and its non-recurrence; and it is a logical deduction quite as accurate as could be the result of a syllogism. The study of the origin of this typhus, and of the causes by which it is generated and spread abroad, will supply us with additional arguments to sustain this deduction, as well as those signs and indications which are the very foundation of curative treatment. The description of the disease will contribute to the same result; for the rational treatment of a distemper can be derived only from a knowledge of all the phenomena which occasion it, of the functional derangements, and of the alterations observed in bodies after death.

      I wish particularly to say at once, in entering upon the subject of etiology, that the special works which treat of it contain precise information as to the causes and origin of the typhus in horned cattle; and that the chief organs of the press in every country – those ephemeral encyclopædias in which unfortunately so much vital force and intelligence are dissipated – have published articles of the highest interest on this subject. It would be physically impossible for me to begin again a bibliographical labour similar to the one exhibited in the First Part, in order to afford due justice to each of these public writers, who have met the epizootia on the confines of their country and fought hand to hand with it. This work is not susceptible of so much enlargement. Let it be well understood, that I claim no other merit than that of discussing these questions of etiology, in that order and with that common sense which fix ideas firmly in the mind – which, if I may use the term, photograph them on those parts of the brain allotted to the memory and judgment; also of drawing from known and admitted facts more rational and practical conclusions than those which have been current up to the present time.

      Much has been already said and argued on the origin of the contagious typhus which affects the ox; some adhering exclusively to the special conditions observable in the breed of those oxen which are reared and fed on the steppes of Russia and Hungary; others, more reasonably, as it seems to us, ascribing it to the hygienic conditions generally, that is to say, to the climate, the season, the feeding, &c., &c., amidst which these animals are living.

      All these discussions upon what has been said and argued on this subject have been very useful. For, had it been rigidly proved that the oxen of the steppes, by some peculiar organization, carry within them those germs or physiological elements which at given times become the leaven of the distemper, and, at a subsequent period, the elements of the contagion, then, indeed, a fact of capital importance and prominent authority would have been established, and the attention of all men interested in these inquiries would have been exclusively concentrated on that particular race of animals and on those countries smitten with the curse, in order to arrest and confine the disease within its one and only focus.

      The supporters of this theory, concerning the first circumscribed origin of the typhus, maintain that all the epizootics whose deplorable history we have given in the first part of this work, have had no other generative causes than the propagation of the complaint, born and begotten on the banks of the Wolga and the Danube, and subsequently conveyed to the different parts of the earth by the emigration of the cattle. And in this manner, too, they have accounted for the appearance of the typhus in South America, in Africa, and in Asia.

      Since this doctrine on the origin of the typhus has been conceived and maintained by men of a high order of understanding, we must suppose that they had been struck and convinced by important facts and serious reasons; and as it would be unfair to oppose a plain denial to an opinion now so generally adopted, we are bound to say in what manner these authors justify their views, after which we shall endeavour to refute them.

      The partisans of the circumscribed origin, who make it depend exclusively on the peculiar organization of the race of the steppes, have based their argument, peremptory and unanswerable as they imagine, on the prime fact, that it has always been possible to trace the diffusion of the typhus in a given country, to some sick animal of the steppes conveyed to that kingdom. In this manner it is, that they explain the generation of the epizootics which have so frequently wasted the continent of Europe. On whatever point of the globe they may appear, this, and only this, is the source of their existence. The isolated position of Great Britain is made to support their arguments. "Behold," they exclaim, "Great Britain, which, thanks to its surrounding seas, has escaped most of the epizootics which have desolated France and Germany during the early part of the nineteenth century." Nay, more, the present visitation of the distemper is also seized upon to sustain their theory, since certain oxen, natives of the steppes, appear to have imported it into London.

      We must add, that nothing is wanting in order to prove this assertion; for they relate with perfect regularity, and step by step, the course taken by the contagion; they specify the time occupied on its passage, and even the names of the infected vessels which have thus imported the principle of the typhus.

      It must be admitted that all the facts thus stated are indisputable; we acknowledge as true, that the bovine race of the steppes has conveyed into other countries the contagious germs of the disease; we admit that its dissemination may be thus accounted for.

      But to admit this fact, and to draw from it the conclusion that the bovine race of the steppes alone is capable, by some particular and distinct organization, of developing the original typhus of the ox, and that this typhus has no other focus on the earth than the banks of the Dnieper and the Don, does not appear to us a sound logical deduction. And as, if this conclusion were positively recognised, we might see but one side of the evil, and deduce very serious consequences therefrom, it is necessary to receive these facts for what they are worth, and no more.

      Let us first observe, that those writers who ascribe the contagious typhus to the race of Southern Russia, do not take into consideration the epizootics of this typhus, the account of which has been handed down to us by the ancient authors of Greece and Rome; and that they refer just as little to those which are quite as frequent in the republics of South America as on the banks of the Dnieper. For even if we allow that once, and only once, one of these epizootics may be traced to the arrival of a ship containing oxen brought from the steppes, how, on

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