In 1912 officials in German East Africa reported that rinderpest, the most feared cattle scourge, had invaded for the first time since the 1890s African panzootic. This acknowledgment launched an expensive vaccination campaign and the creation of a veterinary infrastructure after years of neglect. Despite reports that rinderpest had been present in the region for several years, Germans nevertheless considered it an external threat, constructing disease laws accordingly. Modern virologists believe that rinderpest had been enzootic in colonial Tanzania since the 1890s, causing low mortality, afflicting animals with no prior exposure. African cattle keepers also believed the disease was the same as that of the 1890s. German resistance to recognizing rinderpest before 1912 owed to their faith in injection trials to verify a virus, and their failure to understand that enzootic rinderpest behaved differently than it did during prior epidemics. Moreover, colonial policies that traumatized animals, including landscape engineering, disease controls, wildlife slaughter, the commodifying of cattle, trade violence, and colonial warfare helped enzootic rinderpest become epidemic. The rinderpest campaign itself caused animal distress through mass vaccination and branding. While historians understand how colonial rule exacerbated human health by creating stress and compromising immunity, the same understanding has not been applied to animal health.
Thaddeus Sunseri (Wed,) studied this question.