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14
racter, and but two eases of cholera are reported to me this
day, in West Kent Park, usually one of the worst localities in
the district, but not from any difference in the water supply."
Cattle Plague.
This disease appeared first in this country in a dairy at
Lambeth, on the 24th June, 1865, and on the 27th of the
same month, in ten dairies in Islington and Hackney.
The owners of the dairies had on the 10th instant purchased
cows in the Metropolitan markets, so that, allowing for the
period of incubation (said to be about eight or nine days), the
source of contagion was clearly traced to it.
It was supposed to have been introduced into this country
by a cargo of Russian cattle, which had been imported from
Revel; but it is quite as probable that the disease was imported
from Hungary or Galicia, in which countries it first
existed, and which countries did introduce the plague to
Utrecht, in Holland, in the previous May.
The first beasts affected with it in London were newly
bought Dutch cows.
Tho extent of the ravages of the plague is imperfectly
known, from the desire of cowkecpers to conceal their losses,
but early in July, the Metropolitan market began to affect
the country (all the first cases of disease having appeared in
animals purchased in the London market). Up to January,
1866, 82,057 were reported to have been attacked by the
disease since its commencement, of which 47,192 died, 14,519
were slaughtered, and 8,268 recovered; the fate of 12,000
being then undetermined. In the Supplement to their Report,
the Royal Commissioners say that every one who has had the
plague upon his premises should feel the responsibility which
rests upon him to destroy, by careful cleansing and disinfection,
every trace of the disorder which may be left upon his
pasture or stalls, or his cattle, their horns, hides, manure, or
litter.
Under favourable circumstances for preservation, the contagious
poison has been kept with all its virulence unimpaired
for months.