But if this typhus could not spring up spontaneously out of the bovine race of England, it must be confessed that, independently of the general predisposition due to a great and protracted drought, it found in the sickening sheds of the metropolitan and country cattle the most favourable conditions for its incubation and subsequent diffusion.
It would, indeed, be difficult to conceive of anything more directly adverse to the hygienic laws of health in cattle than the stalls and sheds dotted over the densely populated districts of London. Most of these pent-up cribs are situated in narrow lanes and yards, in filthy streets and blind alleys; and within these close, hot, and steaming receptacles the miserable cows, pressed against each other, without ever moving a limb, waste away and become phthisical in a very short space of time. We may readily imagine what a prey to the contagion must be afforded by these animals, already more or less ailing, some of which are fed in a great measure on malt, so sour and acrid that the very smell of it is intolerable. The milk from these cows is, moreover, of so wretched a quality, that in a cowhouse containing 48 of these poor creatures, at Kensington, I found only one, the milk of which exhibited the taste and quality fit for a sick child, for whom I ordered a milk diet.
It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that the present epizootia, during this late tropical season[E] especially, should have met with all the conditions most conducive to its development and propagation.
When the cattle distemper first broke out, the graziers, not suspecting its gravity, attempted to treat the animals themselves, but soon afterwards perceiving the fruitlessness of all their remedial measures, they felt that the best thing they could do was to turn their sick beasts to whatever account they could, by driving them to market or to the slaughter-houses, an expedient which they were the more disposed to adopt, inasmuch as the diseased cows had ceased to give milk. And then, the removal of these animals, in various stages of the disorder, became the most rapid means of disseminating the contagion, which, had it been concentrated and pent-up at first within its narrow focus, would otherwise have spread with less fearful havoc.[F]