London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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City of London 1864

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London, City of ]

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41
enough of the disease to be able to say more nearly
than that six or seven days, or twelve or fourteen,
or even twenty-one, may elapse between the time
of infection and the first coming on of discoverable
symptoms. On the continent, where the disease
lias been studied from time immemorial, it is
thought that the longest period of incubation is
nine days, and that a quarantine of ten days is
absolutely safe. This, indeed, is the time allowed
between Austria and Prussia on one side, and
Russia and the Danubian Principalities on the
other. If, therefore, we are to be hereafter subject
to the danger of importing infected cattle from
Hungary and Galicia, it is necessary that the
question of the incubation of the disease should be
satisfactorily settled ; for we must either adopt the
practice of slaughtering all suspected cattle at the
place of importation, or they must be subjected to
a sufficiently safe quarantine. In fact, whatever
may be the views of cattle salesmen in respect
of such regulations, one or other of them must
assuredly be adopted if we are to be kept safe
from future infection. It is, therefore, very necessary
that the maximum period of incubation in
this country should be satisfactorily settled; for
if, for the sake of safety, an unreasonably long time
is required, it will either stop the trade in foreign
cattle, or lead to nefarious practices. This is the
great reason why in Austria and Prussia the time