OF THE OX. 61 



government was bound to compensate the 

 cattle proprietors whose animals had to be 

 killed the more so, said he, that the crafty 

 husbandmen would never come forward and 

 freely declare the invalidity of their cattle, 

 unless some indemnity were held out to them, 

 which they would look upon as a sort of 

 equivalent for the benefits they had expected 

 by cutting them up and selling them as the 

 food of man. 



The doctors of the period, scenting in Yicq 

 d'Azyr a dangerous competitor, considered 

 the advice of exterminating the diseased cattle 

 as an ingenious means of curing them, and as 

 the author's age and experience gave warrant 

 for this satirical tone of discussion, the public 

 joined them in laughing at him. 



The epizootic typhus, if not so destructive, 

 was at least as frequent in the early part of the 

 nineteenth century, as it had been during the 

 eighteenth. The armies during the wars of 

 united Europe against the French Eepublic 

 and Empire, found it constantly in their train. 

 Nor could it be otherwise, the two leading 

 causes of its prevalence being at hand. For 

 on one hand there was the transit of large 



