Robert Koch and the rinderpest.

This is an account of the rinderpest outbreak in southern Africa in the closing decade of the 19th century, with special reference to the Transvaal and northern Cape which brought socio-economic disaster in its wake in President Kruger's Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. Robert Koch was invited to South Africa by the Cape Government to investigate the cattle plague and to find a cure. His stay in Kimberley was sponsored by the De Beer's Company and the Kimberley Diamond Fields Advertiser gave regular, sometimes dramatic, reports of the progress of the work. Although doubt seems to have existed in some quarters as to the complete success of Robert Koch's vaccine, the consensus appears to be that it was efficacious.