El'IZOOTICS IN ANCIKNT TIMES. 7 



During the autumnal heats the infection grew. 



Tame cattle and the beasts of nature slew ; 



****** 



****** 



Sheep, oxen, horses fell, and, heaped on high. 



The diffring species in confusion lie*." 



Such is a poetical account of one of these epizootics, 

 as it raged among the Alps, probably not less than 

 2000 years since. We also learn from Plutarch that, 

 in the days of Romulus, or about the time that Rome 

 was founded (750 B.C.), a great plague, after destroy- 

 ing the fruits of the earth and the cattle, swept off 

 many of the people. And Livy says, " The consuls 

 had the greater difficulty to raise their recruits, because 

 the plague, which the year before had raged among 

 horned cattle, broke out among men." We find, 

 however, that Varro and others, the earliest writers 

 on husbandry, are nearly silent on these affections. 

 Columella, the author of one of the most valuable 

 works on Roman agriculture, and who flourished 

 shortly after the birth of Christ, views them as conta- 

 gious disorders, and has handed do^\Tl some instructions 

 for their cm-e. It is not until the fourth century, when 

 they are again mentioned by Vegetius, that we have 

 much further information about them. This veteri- 

 nary writer, after describing several varieties of *' the 

 distemper or plague," goes on to observe : — " All these 

 diseases are fuh of contagion, and if they seize an ani- 

 mal, they pass immediately to all ; and so they bring 

 destmction sometimes either upon whole herds, or 

 upon all those that are tame and broke for labour. 

 Therefore the animals which have been once attacked, 

 must, with all diUgence and care, be separated from 

 the herd, and put apart by themselves, and sent to 

 * Geobcic 3, 1. 711 — 829, Dryden's translation. 



