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The Origin and Causes of the Ox Typhus

I

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 the other hand, can we believe that all other epizootics have had such a fortuitous cause to generate it; consequently, the typhus, in these cases, must have been locally developed and diffused among American cattle?

Moreover, we seek in vain for the reasons which would authorize us to assign to the bovine race of the steppes a particular organization, rendering it alone fit to engender the typhus. But let us grant for a moment, that the Russian and Hungarian oxen constitute a peculiar race, as their framework and the length of their horns would seem to imply; this much being conceded, it still remains to be shown in what respect their anatomical and physiological structure differs from that of other animals to such an extent as to render them alone liable to originate this fatal typhus.

Oh! if it were true that the bovine race of the steppes alone could engender the typhus! we would hail the fact with joy, and would show without much exertion of reasoning that, in that case, we possessed not only the means of preventing the disease by inoculating sound and healthy cattle, but the far more important means of sweeping it for ever from the earth, by at once exterminating that cursed race, smitten with the original predisposition of this plague; and as, after all, the murderous scourge of the typhus of the steppes has already cost, and may perhaps continue to cost the various nations of the Old World millions upon millions, they would feel that their most urgent interest would be to come to an understanding (nor would the sacrifice be too much for their resources) so as to destroy and extirpate the evil at its original source. There would then be no difficulty in raising up a new breed of cattle in those countries, by transporting to it those of other nations free from the infection.

But who does not understand that this heroic sacrifice would be illusory, and that the foreign races, modified in time in this new medium, would regenerate the typhus; so that the double sacrifice of extermination and indemnity would have been made to no purpose?

We wish we could adopt this hypothesis, so simple and so consolatory, of the circumscribed origin of the typhus, and its exclusive propagation through the race of the steppes; but our mind is altogether opposed to that view, and for the following reasons, amongst others: —

If the bovine race of the steppes alone could produce the typhic virus, by reason of a particular organization which is the prime condition of its existence, this race alone would of necessity be fit to receive its taint by the influence of contagion. But if the other animals of the same species, as unfortunately too surely happens, can receive the principle of the disorder, develop the ailment, and die of its effects, then the reasoning of our opponents is faulty from its source; and it must be admitted that all horned cattle are apt to generate the typhic virus in those countries which afford the conditions of its production, and that this exclusive predisposition as it is called, attributed to the race inhabiting the steppes, is simply a chimera.

But arguments are seldom exhausted even to defend a bad cause, and it is objected that the fact that all oxen may contract the typhus transmitted by the contact of animals from one to another, does not prove that the original predisposition is the same in every race; and they persist in maintaining – 1st, that the typhus of the steppes is alone able originally to beget the disease; 2nd, that having thus begotten and produced it, it becomes, after this organic conception, apt to be transmitted to every animal, and fit to be assimilated with them.

To these subtleties and argumentative refinements it would be as easy for me to oppose abstract reasonings equally strong, as it would have been for the Jansenists and Mollinists, had it so chanced that they had been drawn into a debate on the origin and nature of the virus of the plague which carried off Jansenius. But let us confine ourselves to serious facts and conclude —

1st. That we have no proof of any anatomical and physiological difference in the humours or in the blood – that is to say, in the organic, intimate, and biological elements of the individuals which collectively constitute the bovine species.

2nd. That we have a right to believe, that all horned cattle are apt to develop the typhic virus when they are placed within the conditions required for that effect – that is to say, when they are exposed to the special morbific causes which form its condition sine quâ non, and which are met with on the banks of those great rivers which water Southern Russia and Hungary, in Africa, on the banks of the Nile, in South America, on the margins of the lakes, and in what are called hot climates, &c.

II

But if the origin of the typhus cannot exclusively depend on the peculiar organization of certain individuals of the bovine species, we must inquire after and search for the real causes which produce it.

We have explained already, in the First Part, what alterations organic matter undergoes in general, when accidental causes happen to modify its organic elements; and we have pointed out the fact, that of all living creatures herbivorous animals were those that offered the least vital resistance to the causes of disease and destruction.

This unquestionable fact being taken for granted, let us now consider under what conditions live the multitudinous herds of horned cattle which in Russia and in South America are reared and supported solely for the produce of their flesh, and sometimes, too, for that of their hides.

The great breeders and proprietors fix the number of their heads of cattle according and in proportion to the quantity of the pastures, but like other men, they mortgage the future for their benefit without making due allowance for accidents or extreme changes of weather, as when years of unusual drought succeed those of heavy rain; so that these herds, by the single fact of these extreme fluctuations in the degrees of temperature, are exposed to a multiplicity of causes productive of disease. The same nature which generates life and health generates disease and dissolution, and when the former are neglected the latter will prevail.

In the prosperous and favoured countries of the temperate zone, such as England and France, these extreme variations in the seasons, which are always the cause of a deficiency or alteration in the production of fodder, are equally the cause of the numerous epizootics which attack all the herbivorous species, and particularly those to which oxen fall victims, such as the tumourous typhus (le typhus charbonneux), the so-called aphthous fever, the contagious peripneumonia (which is not liable to return and is prevented by inoculation), parasitical cutaneous disease.

But in less favoured countries, in those which are damp, argillaceous, swampy, inundated by the overflows of their lakes and rivers, or by the reflux of the sea, there is deposited a slimy or brackish water, which a temporary torrid heat afterwards causes to ferment; and then a superabundance of life, a teeming vegetation, springs up in all directions. In the midst of this swarming vitality live and thrive an infinity of worms, maggots, animalculæ, insects, mollusca, fish, reptiles, birds, &c.; and here, too, all these creatures die and decay, when this slime, the prolific source of generations which we might look upon as spontaneous, begins to dry up and disintegrate. Then from these organic vegetable and animal matters, in a state of decomposition, escape those deleterious gases, such as hydrogen, carbonic oxide, nitrogen, carbonic acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, and even phosphoretted hydrogen.

Often to all these causes of infection are added myriads of grasshoppers, which cover the ground, where they die, aggravating the mass of pestiferous vapour which fills the atmosphere. Finally, the water which slakes the thirst of the herds of cattle is corrupted; the plants on which they feed distil poisons; the air, the water, and the plants, carry within them a principle of venom and death. After this, how can we be surprised if this flood of putrid emanations is transformed into a contagious typhic virus, whose subtle and pestilential effluvia are conveyed by the ox to considerable distances?

In fine, let us recapitulate in our minds all the causes of destruction to which these passive creatures are exposed, and we shall acknowledge that there is no necessity to attribute to them a peculiar organization in order to understand the development of the typhus, which, at a given moment, cuts them all off; and that in the deltas of the different countries, as well in Asia, Africa, and America, as in Europe, are to be found those conditions of infectious disease which we have described. In these causes, and only in these causes, or in those which resemble them, will rational men seek for the principle of the contagious typhus in the bovine race.

Moreover, who is there who does not understand that what is true with regard to cholera is likewise applicable to this contagious typhus? The cholera, for causes analogous to these, subject to the particular state of the soil, is generated, not exclusively, it is true, but most frequently, on the banks of the Ganges, in the same manner as the contagious typhus is developed in certain countries where its natural focus is found.

The race of animals which exists on this deadly and destructive soil is an instrument of incubation for typhus, not in consequence of their peculiar structure, but because the conditions under which they live condemn them to this fate.

III

Now the breeding of cattle, and the feeding and fattening of them for the market, constitute a branch of industry – a great interest. They all have to be removed, conveyed to various distances, and sold; so that this traffic becomes a new cause to be added to all those which foster, develop and propagate the distemper.

In prosperous times, when the seasons, conformably with our wishes, have pursued a course which we call regular (for we are fain to believe that the planets turn on their axes on our account), and when the cattle find the ground covered with rich pastures, and limpid streams – conditions which are eminently favourable in themselves, though in Hungary it is necessary to add gum, salt, mineral water, and arsenic acid, before the health of these animals is satisfactory, – then the cattle breeders make their sordid calculations, and select the heads of cattle intended for sale.