Noun
A highly contagious distemper or murrain, affecting neat cattle, and less commonly sheep and goats; -- called also cattle plague, Russian cattle plague, and steppe murrain.
Source: Webster's dictionaryA rinderpest epidemic and drought during the 1890s greatly reduced the numbers of both Maasai and animal populations. Source: Internet
Veterinary scientists, notably George Fleming and John Gamgee, campaigned for stringent levels of inspection to ensure that epizootics such as rinderpest (a devastating outbreak of the disease covered all of Britain in 1865) would not be able to spread. Source: Internet