1797 Decree, cattle plague, epizootic, veterinary medicine, Switzerland

[Paul Hofer]

Ordonnance tendante à prévenir les ravages de l'epizotie

de l'Imprimerie de LL. EE. [Daniel Brunner], A Berne, 1797 [dated in manuscript 24. January, 1797].

20 cm (4°). 19 pages. Bernese coat of arms to title page.

Rare decree issued by the Chancellory on Berne for the prevention of the cattle plague that hit Switzerland in 1796.. 

Fascinating response to one of the many disastrous cattle epizootics that appeared in Europe during the 18th century, ushering in a century of almost constant epizootic prevalence and economic disaster. First appearing in 1709, the causes of these epizootics were largely unknown, although historians now believe that it to have been rinderpest (then referred to nonspecifically as “la maladie pestilentielle des bêtes à cornes” and later in England as “cattle plague”). In 1796, the virus attacked the French army's herd supplies on the Rhine. It spread with alarming rapidity to all cattle in the department of Bas-Rhin as its contagious properties were still misunderstood. Soon Alsace, Lorraine and Franche-Comte, were infected. Crossing the Jura, the disease spread to Switzerland, returning to Burgundy where it advanced on Champagne, Picardy and the gates of Paris. The North was affected via the border from 1797 to 1798