The prevalence, prevention and treatment of cattle epidemic during the Han-Tang Period

Abstract

About 21 times of cattle epidemic with rather strong infectivity happened during the Han-Tang Period, including 6 in the Eastern Han Dynasty, 2 in the Jin Dynasty, 4 in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, 8 in the Tang Dynasty and 1in the Five Dynasty. Most of them were spread along the Yellow River and the northern region of the Huai River. The type of cattle epidemic included the acute cattle plague, cattle bovine mange, cattle yellow fever and cattle rotten hoof disease, etc. Its occurrence and prevalence brought a serious influentce on the society of the Han and Tang Dynasties, causing massive mortality of farm cattle, and then the shortage of animal power, and threatening the agriculture, which drew the attention of the governments, physicians, agriculturists, astrologists and Taoists. The medical measures and economic measures were adopted for the prevention and treatment of cattle epidemic. Especially, prescriptions in the books of medicine and agriculture exerted positive effects on the containment of cattle epidemic. On the other hand, its prevalence and the mass mortality of farm cattle, in a way, promoted, to certain extent, the improvement of the government's function of relief, the updating of the methods of agriculture and the creation of new farm tools, and being regarded as a main cause for the technological innovation of agriculture.