OF THE OX. 157 



poisonous virus had smitten them ; they suf- 

 fered in their general structure ; they looked 

 stupefied ; they lost, at a given moment, their 

 appetite and rumination ; they had fever ; 

 their breathing had become short and fre- 

 quent ; they had diarrho3a ; they gradually 

 lost flesh, and the excreta passed through cer- 

 tain changes and transformations. In a word, 

 the animal had manifestly the bovine typhus ; 

 but, thanks to a relative immunity, to a special 

 organization, which renders some of these 

 beasts capable of resisting the contagion for a 

 long period, and sometimes altogether* thanks 

 to that variety which we observe in different 

 constitutions (for small-pox and typhus in 

 man, and the true typhoid fever in animals, 

 do not operate with the same violence on all 

 alike) thanks to this privileged organiza- 

 tion, we have seen some oxen pass through 

 every stage of the disease without exhibiting 

 this terrible train of morbid phenomena. 

 In these cases for even this mild form of 



* Mr. Simonds has for three months had under his 

 observation a cow which has lived with impunity among 

 animals sick and dying of the typhus. And a young 

 calf did not contract the disease for more than three 

 weeks. 



