THE HISTORY OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 253 



of the corruption of the humors, and are only most apparent in the 

 latter stages of the disease. It is believed that the contagion among 

 cattle is an inflammatory fever, a malignant fever — a fever accom- 

 panied by an eruption of the skin — as well as an inflammation of the 

 stomach. It is evident that it is a disease of the lungs, which com- 

 mences by an inflammation, running often into gangrene ; at other 

 times into abscesses, and which terminates in phthisis. It is very 

 astonishing that among the number of modern doctors who have 

 written on a contagion existing for so many years, scarcely one has 

 observed that the seat of the disease exists in the lungs, or even that 

 these were attacked. 



" 4. The doctors have established their remedial measures to cure 

 this disease on the notion that they knew its nature. Those who 

 look upon it as an inflammatory fever recommend bleeding, and 

 remedies of a soothing and cooling kind ; those who admit a corrup- 

 tion of the blood have ordered febrifuge and stimulating remedies ; 

 and those who consider it a putrid fever counsel the administration 

 of acids ; and, in Brandenburg, wild apples have been recommended 

 as a specific. Others, again, have proposed quinine, and others mer- 

 cury, while the people have had recourse in general to incongruous 

 compositions, and to old-fashioned recipes. The ancients looked 

 much to setons passed through the skin, in order to establish a long- 

 continued suppuration. But it has been discovered, by sad expe- 

 rience, in Holland and England, that these remedies are impotent ; 

 all hope of curing this disease has been lost, and people are content 

 to mitigate it by inoculation. We pass in silence the pretended pre- 

 servatives by which it is supposed animals are insured against the 

 contagion, and to which no man of sense would give any confidence, 

 seeing that they are useless against the plague, the small-pox, and 

 other contagious diseases. 



" 5. A long experience has taught us that remedies are useless 

 against the contagion. The beginning of the disease is nearly im- 

 perceptible, and when the symptoms are manifested the cure has 

 become almost impossible. The use of remedies is otherwise dan- 

 gerous, for the infection is really communicated by the breath and 

 exhalations. We have a proof of this in the foul smell attached to 

 the clothes of people who look after the diseased beasts. "We can 

 not hope to cure in a day a disease of so serious a character ; 

 and thus the diseased creature, which lives in the same stable with 

 other cattle, and feeds and drinks with them, may infect them 

 during the time we are unsuccessfully attempting to cure it. These 

 same exhalations may also lodge in the clothes of those who go 



