282 THE CONTAGIOUS TYPHUS 



disease is one arising from the absorption 

 of seeds and germs with which the air is 

 impregnated, and which is drawn by the 

 animals into their bodies when breathing the 

 air around them. When these germs, these 

 infectious poisons, have penetrated into the 

 lungs and blood of the animals, these seeds 

 of infection remain there from eight to twelve 

 days without producing any very perceptible 

 effects ; but after that time the tainted animal 

 becomes dejected, loses his appetite, is seized 

 with fever, laborious breathing, and diarrhoea, 

 to which sum of disorders in the health of 

 oxen, cows, &c., the name of typhus has been 

 given ; or, as this distemper is contagious in 

 the highest degree, it has also been called the 

 contagious typhus. 



You may compare this disease, in order 

 to form a more precise idea of it, to the 

 small-pox, which sometimes afflicts your 

 children, or to typhoid fever. These com- 

 plaints, which are familiar to most of you, 

 have some resemblance to the typhus of the 

 ox. Only in the small-pox, which is caught 

 by contagion, and which seldom attacks more 

 than once, like typhus, the disease is localized 



