Veterinary Research and the African Rinderpest Epizootic: The Cape Colony, 1896-1898

Abstract

The rinderpest epizootic produced in the Cape Colony a crisis of knowledge about animal disease and its control. The Cape government drew on the knowledge and expertise of veterinary and medical scientists to devise means of dealing with the epizootic. This article examines veterinary policy and research into rinderpest at the Cape. Policy was initially based on the British model of quarantine and slaughter, but these methods proved politically controversial and prohibitively expensive. Researchers used the methods of an emerging immunological science, together with local knowledge, to develop techniques of prophylactic inoculation which were potentially effective in the field. This process was non-linear and characterised by both errors and professional rivalry, but enabled the government to abandon its politically confrontational policies of veterinary policing. Voluntary programmes of inoculation became the central component of government policy for dealing with the disease. The epizootic not only produced political tension, but also helped spread scientific ideas and techniques across parts of the colony. In this regard, state resources and official veterinary efforts to control rinderpest were directed primarily towards European farmers. Nevertheless, veterinary science did not become straightforwardly a 'tool' of the colonist; its acceptance and use were mediated by the perceptions and experiences of various groups. Officials and some farmers perceived that the extent to which prophylactic inoculation was practised had a substantial bearing on mortality rates. Overall, the Cape state at the end of the nineteenth century was able to deal relatively effectively, in the African context, with a serious outbreak of animal disease. The perceived success of veterinary services strengthened the position of the vets within the Cape's Department of Agriculture and led to more extensive experimentation.