Page 202 - Encyclopedia Of World History

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Animal Diseases and Nationalism

Animal diseases can have enormous economic conse- spontaneous origin in England. The first known
quences. For this reason, modern nation-states are cases were all in animals collected from different
reluctant to accept blame for the disease originating in parts of England and Holland, brought to the Met-
their territory.This text extract concerns a cattle plague ropolitan Market on one particular day, the 19th of
or Rinderpest that spread across Britain in the 1860s June; they were purchased by different dairymen,
and shows the reluctance of the investigators to trace and then taken to five sheds in different parts of Lon-
it to British soil. don, namely, in Islington, Hackney, Lambeth, and
Paddington. As there was no Cattle Plague in the
If, for example, the Cattle Plague has spontaneously
parts of England whence these cattle came, and
originated in this country from the way in which our
none in the sheds to which they were taken, and as
cattle have been housed or fed, we might hope to
the length of the incubation period, as well as the
show how such conditions act; and how they can be
absence of any probable cause, negatives the idea of
removed. If it originates in some wave of poisonous
a spontaneous origination simultaneously in these
air which spreads over the country, and, after having
five sheds, the conclusion becomes almost irre-
a regular period of flow has a succeeding period of
sistible that the cattle must have caught the disease
ebb and disappearance, we must be content with
whilst standing for sale in the Metropolitan Market.
bearing what no care can foresee and no art control.
Now this market is certainly the most likely place in
If, however, Cattle Plague has been introduced among
England for Cattle Plague to be brought to from
our herds by the arrival from infected places of cattle
abroad, and if not the most unlikely, at any rate an
already diseased, and if it spreads entirely by conta-
unlikely place for it to spring up in.
gion, it is obvious that means may lie used, which, if
Source: Third report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into the origin and nature
applied strictly and carefully, will be effectual, to pre- &C., of the cattle plague; with an appendix. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by
vent its return. command of Her Majesty. (1866). Retrieved from medhist.ac.uk/text/browse/mesh/
C0003047L0003047.html
. . .We have been able to find no evidence of a

primates, where it only causes mild influenza-like symp- the ungulate populations as minor problems. These dis-
toms. Other examples include measles, which is closely eases thrived particularly well in the high densities at
related to the ungulate disease rinderpest; tuberculosis, which human societies kept cattle and pigs. Farmers are
which is closely related to a similar disease in cattle; and sedentary, living among their own sewage and that of the
influenza, which is actually a complex of viral diseases domestic animals with whom they live in an intimate and
derived repeatedly from similar pathogens occurring in symbiotic fashion. In many agrarian societies, farmers tra-
pigs (swine flu) and birds such as ducks and chickens. ditionally took cattle and pigs into their homes at night,
Contagious diseases that manage to cross the species both for warmth and to protect their livestock from pred-
barrier from nonhumans into humans have been a major ators. These conditions both prolong exposure and in-
factor shaping the history of Europe and Asia. A major crease the likelihood of transmission of bacterial and viral
difference between Europe and Asia as contrasted with pathogens.
the Americas and Africa is that Eurasian cultures domes- Agriculture sustains much higher human densities
ticated and lived in close association with the animal than the hunting-gathering lifestyles that agriculture
species that served as the original hosts of these diseases. replaced. The large concentrations of humans resulting
Domestication of ungulates, especially cattle and swine, from increased urbanization provided fertile ground for
set up scenarios whereby humans living on intimate the rapid spread of infectious diseases that originated in
terms with these animals were continually exposed to a other species. Only within the last century did European
wide range of epidemic diseases, which already afflicted cities achieve self-sustaining populations, because so