26 The Cattle Plague. [Jan., 
Royal Society in January, 1746, by Dr. Mortimer, he ascribes the 
origin of the murrain to two calves imported from Holland by a 
farmer living near Poplar, early in 1745. The spring and summer 
had been very wet, the autumn dry and cold, the early winter cold 
and damp. ‘The disease communicated to the cows of this farmer 
spread through Essex, reached London, and was propagated in 
various directions from the metropolitan markets. The disease for 
some time advanced in a manner which appeared to justify the 
Government in treating its attacks as mere local outbreaks, and it 
was nearly a year after its first appearance that the country became 
sufficiently aroused to use national measures for the repression of it.” 
It has, moreover, been constantly more or less destructive in 
the Southern Provinces of Jwussia, where, indeed, they try to 
confine it by a rigid quarantine maintained between them and the 
neighbouring countries. ‘Though not so destructive in its proper 
“home,” it has proved extremely fatal wherever it has broken 
bounds and infected the previously untainted herds of Western 
Europe. ‘Thus the report of the Commission already quoted 
informs us that “the Danish monarchy, in the four years from 
1745 to 1749, lost 280,000 head, and Holland, in the three years 
begining with 1769, lost 395,000 head. These disasters attracted 
the attention of Governments and scientific men, and the long 
peace which began in 1816 permitted the adoption of those 
careful and systematic measures of precaution which, in the 
countries bordering on Russia, have been maintained ever since 
with various modifications, and, on the whole, with considerable 
success. It was ascertained that Europe usually received the 
infection through Russian steppe cattle sent into Poland and 
Hungary. Large herds of them are annually driven to different 
parts of Russia, to Poland, Galicia, and Hungary, and often carry 
with them the seeds of disease in their tran. In 1862 the number 
attacked by the plague in the Austrian dominions was 296,000, of 
which 152,000 died. In 1863 it again invaded and overran not 
only Galicia, but the whole of the kingdom of Hungary and its 
dependencies, the Bukowina, Dalmatia, Carniola, Lower Austria, 
Moravia, and Styria.” Fourteen per cent. of the cattle in these 
countries took the infection, and the average mortality, as stated in 
Schmidt’s Jahrbuch der Gesammten Medecin, 1865 (p. 95), was as 
follows :— 
Per cent. Per cent. 
Tali eeinPs, ee ehoee by ome os Military Frontier . 83 
East Galicia ee ee ree 717 Moravia’ 22.5097) 4. ass 
Croatia and Slavonia . . 81°6 Lower Austria . . . 92 
That the disease which has thus been so constantly the terror of 
Eastern stockowners is the same which is now so destructive here, is 
proved by its symptoms. ‘These are thus described by Dr. Smart, 
of Edinburgh :— 
