An outbreak in France in the XVIIIth Century: Rinderpest

Long regarded as the major disease of cattle, rinderpest is now eradicated. It was inflicting from 60 to 90% mortality on livestock. Installed in Asia, it arrived in France in waves, but never became endemic there. Four outbreaks of rinderpest hit the country during the eighteenth century. Their geographical extension has been reconstituted. They forced the State to devise the consistent set of health actions the nineteenth century benefited before the advent of microbiology. (C) 2012 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.