"Foot and mouth disease. Known as Koch's preparation. Serum
and virus. Percentage of salted horses. Rinderpest. Emperor's
horses at Murzsteg, lower Austria. Veterinary surgeons." Like
so many of his historical and political pronouncements,
Deasy's science is an overhasty mixture of good and bad
information. His letter to the editor reflects awareness of
new, cutting-edge science in bacteriology, virology, and
veterinary medicine. But he is wrong to say that FMD "can be
cured. It is cured. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me
it is regularly treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors
there." No cure or successful vaccination was even in the
offing; Deasy's barrage of learned names does not represent
actionable information.
The details from the letter display a combination of
enlightened scientific awareness and incomplete understanding.
Gifford notes that "Veterinary surgeons" were
a "relatively new branch of medical science at the turn of the
century," and he commends Deasy for his argument "that
epidemic diseases among animals should be investigated and
treated in the light of the latest scientific methods." But
his inquiries with the national records bureau in Austria
turned up no evidence that the "Emperor's horses at
Murzsteg" were subject to veterinary experiments at
any time during the years 1895-1914.
"Rinderpest" was another bovine disease, and
the "Percentage of salted horses" refers to
attempts to inoculate horses against tuberculosis, with a
biological substance suspended in saline solution (hence
"salted"). But the tuberculosis treatment did not live up to
initial hopes, and rinderpest remained incurable. "Serum
and virus" apparently refers to methods developed
in the 1890s for preventing and/or treating infectious
diseases like tetanus by injecting patients with blood serum
from immunized horses. These antibody and antitoxin treatments
were eventually extended into the realm of viral illness (FMD is caused by a virus),
but not until the 1940s. "Koch's preparation"
was devised in 1882 by Robert Koch as an inoculation against
anthrax; but when two of the great scientist's students
attempted to apply the same technique to the prevention of
FMD, early in the 20th century, they achieved only minimal
success.
This jumble of information about FMD, TB, rinderpest, cows,
horses, and Austrian doctors gets jumbled some more in Oxen
of the Sun, when a drunken Stephen tells Bloom that "he
had dispatches from the emperor's chief tailtickler thanking
him for the hospitality, that was sending over Doctor
Rinderpest, the bestquoted cowcatcher in all Muscovy, with a
bolus or two of physic to take the bull by the horns."
"Muscovy" may be a derivative of "Murzsteg," translated by bad
memory and alcoholic and linguistic exuberance.
