Rinderpest in the context of "Necrosis"

The word "murrain" /ˈmʌrɪn/ (like an archaic use of the word "distemper") is an antiquated term covering various infectious diseases affecting cattle and sheep. The word originates from Middle English moreine or moryne, in parallel to Late Latin morina ("plague"), a probable derivative of Latin mori ("to die").

The word "murrain", much like the word "pestilence", did not refer to a specific disease but rather served as an umbrella term for what veterinary science now recognises as a number of different diseases with high morbidity and mortality, such as rinderpest, erysipelas, foot-and-mouth disease, anthrax, and streptococcus infections. Some of these livestock diseases can also affect humans. The term "murrain" also referred to an epidemic of such a disease.

Marko Anton Plenčič, Marcus von Plenciz or Marcus Antonius von Plenciz (28 April 1705 – 25 November 1786) was a Slovenian physician in Vienna who was among the early adopters of the germ or contagion theory of infection at a time when infectious disease was attributed to bad air or miasmas. He published his theories in Opera medico-physica 1762. He has been called the Slovene Pasteur.

Plenčič was born in Salcan near Görtz/Gorizia where he studied before going to study medicine in Vienna and Padua. Graduating in 1735, he practiced in Vienna until his death. His 1762 book Opera medico-physica had four parts and he described the theory of germs that he called animalcula minima or animalcula insensibilia as being the cause of infectious diseases with his focus being on rinderpest. Among his teachers was Carlo Francesco Cogrossi (1682–1769) who had also identified microbes as causal organisms for disease. Plenčič suggested that earthquakes such as the one in 1755 had helped the spread of rinderpest. He hypothesized that each disease was caused by a different organism dwelling within the human body, but was unable to offer proof. He suggested treatments that worked against the microbes as cures although the agents he suggested were antiseptics and heavy metal compounds. He was an honorary professor at the Vienna Medical School and was titled as a nobleman by Maria Theresa in 1764 and knighted in 1770.

Polio eradication, the goal of permanent global cessation of circulation of the poliovirus and hence elimination of the poliomyelitis (polio) it causes, is the aim of a multinational public health effort begun in 1988, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Rotary Foundation. These organizations, along with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and The Gates Foundation, have spearheaded the campaign through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). Successful eradication of infectious diseases has been achieved twice before, with smallpox in humans and rinderpest in ruminants.

Prevention of disease spread is accomplished by vaccination. There are two kinds of polio vaccine—oral polio vaccine (OPV), which uses weakened poliovirus, and inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), which is injected. OPV is less expensive and easier to administer, and can spread immunity beyond the person vaccinated, creating contact immunity. It has been the predominant vaccine used. However, under conditions of long-term vaccine virus circulation in under-vaccinated populations, mutations can reactivate the virus to produce a polio-inducing strain, while OPV can also, in rare circumstances, induce polio or persistent asymptomatic infection in vaccinated individuals, particularly those who are immunodeficient. IPV, being inactivated, does not carry these risks, but does not induce contact immunity. IPV is more costly and the logistics of its delivery are more challenging.

The eradication of infectious diseases is the reduction of the prevalence of an infectious disease in the global host population to zero.

Two infectious diseases have successfully been eradicated: smallpox in humans, and rinderpest in ruminants. There are four ongoing programs, targeting the human diseases polio, yaws, dracunculiasis (Guinea worm), and malaria. Five more infectious diseases have been identified as of April 2008 as potentially eradicable with current technology by the Carter Center International Task Force for Disease Eradication – measles, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), and cysticercosis (pork tapeworm).

Carlo Francesco Cogrossi (5 July 1682 – 13 January 1769) was an Italian physician who was among the first to suggest the theory of contagium vivum that minute invisible parasitic living organisms were a cause of disease. His suggestion was based on his examination of a rinderpest epidemic which he published in a letter Nuova idea del male contagioso dei buoi (New theory of the contagious disease of the oxen) published in 1714.

100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species is a list of invasive species compiled in 2000 from the Global Invasive Species Database, a database of invasive species around the world. The database is run by the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The ISSG acknowledges that it is "very difficult to identify 100 invasive species from around the world that really are 'worse' than any others. ... Absence from the list does not imply that a species poses a lesser threat." In 2013, the ISSG updated their list to supersede the recently eradicated † rinderpest virus, and a few genus and species names were altered.

The Second Matabele War, also known as the First Chimurenga, was fought between 1896 and 1897 in the region that later became Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The conflict was initially between the British South Africa Company and the Matabele people, later expanding to include the Shona people in the rest of Southern Rhodesia.

In March 1896, the Matabele revolted against the authority of the British South Africa Company. The Mlimo (or M'limo, or Umlimo) the Matabele spiritual leader, was credited with fomenting much of the anger that led to this confrontation. He convinced the Matabele and the Shona that the settlers (almost 4,000-strong by then) were responsible for the drought, locust plagues and the cattle disease rinderpest ravaging the country at the time.