Noth- und Hülfs-Tafel zur Verhütung der Rindviehpest oder Viehseuche

by Bernhard Christoph Faust

Lemgo: Meyerschen Buchhandlung (Heirs of Heinrich Wilhelm Meyer), March 1798

1 broadsheet | 463 x 363 mm

One of at least a dozen broadside editions of the prolific German physician’s advice on treating the devastating cattle plague. We find others published at Stuttgart, 1797; Bückeburg, 1797; Leipzig, 1797; Dresden, 1799; Bamberg, 1801; Leipzig, 1813; a 1797 edition without place of production; undated editions at Karlsruhe and Gotha; an 1800 French version, Strasbourg, and another undated French edition. We suspect the content derives from the author’s much more extensive Über die Rindvieh-Pest (Stuttgart, 1797). His advice was also issued in pamphlet form, on which subject our broadside has a terse promotional note at end: “I have also written a book on rinderpest. Read it!” No doubt selling advice from any Dr. Faust required extra effort (though he was admittedly quite respected and widely known for his Catechism of Health). At bottom are prices for the broadside, both individually and in wholesale quantities of 100 and 600. ¶ There was good reason to produce and post these broadsides widely. “Cattle plague or rinderpest, the highly infectious and most lethal of bovine diseases, described as the most dreaded above all of animal contagions, had repeatedly ravaged Europe since time immemorial” (Spinage). Europe was hit especially hard in the 18th and 19th centuries, where Germany alone lost an estimated 28 million cattle between 1711 and 1865. Beyond the tragic loss of life, livelihoods were destroyed and economies distressed. ¶ Faust here provides a list of symptoms, both external and internal; remarks on the fatality of the disease, indicating that 25 million German cattle had been killed since 1711 (the year of a notorious Italian epidemic); sundry facts and characteristics of the scourge (“It’s present in every season, in all weather, and in every country”); details on its transmission; comments on the uselessness of certificates of health and the dangers of the cattle trade; and preventative measures and treatment, these accounting for roughly half of the broadside’s content, with discrete sections on actions to take based on when the disease arrived (“If the plague has arrived within 30 (or fewer) hours, there is danger!”), plus advice should an infected animal be found in your community (“Killing the first sick animal is the best and surest means of putting an end to rinderpest”). We expect anyone (literate) charged with caring for cattle might have kept a broadside like this handy, and communities at risk certainly would have benefited from sharing the information publicly. The vast geographic spread of their production betrayed the importance of reaching every corner of the country. Lemgo, for example, was hardly a great metropolis, yet our printer thought it reasonable to offer this broadside in quantities of 600. ¶ We locate no other copies of this Lemgo edition.

CONDITION: Printed on the recto only of a full sheet of laid paper. Hinged into a hinged matte. ¶ Brittle at the edges, with some creases and chips; creased across both dimensions, with a pinhole at the intersection and some toning along the horizontal crease.

REFERENCES: C.A. Spinage, Cattle Plague: A History (Kluwer Academic, 2003), p. 3; Alan L. Olmstead, “The First Line of Defense: Inventing the Infrastructure to Combat Animal Diseases,” The Journal of Economic History 69.2 (June 2009), p. 330 (“Whatever the total losses, a serious problem with rinderpest was that it shocked economies by rapidly wiping out much of the regional cattle stock”)

Item #341