11 SMALL- POX IN SUKKF. 



Virgil, in his description ot" tlie causes and effects of 

 an e})izootic thus expresses himself, 



" At length whole herds to death at once it sweeps ; 

 High in the stalls it piles the loathsome heaps ; 

 Dire spectacle ! till sage experience found 

 To bury deep the carrion in the ground. 

 Useless their hides, nor from the flesh the flame 

 Could purge the filth, nor steams the savour tame." 



GEORGic,lib. Ill, V. 556. llliarton's translation. 



In the days of Homer the effects were attributed to 

 the offended gods ; but whether his account is, or is 

 not, symbolical of a vitiated air, we cannot determine. 

 The antiquity of such an opinion is clearly shewn by 

 the extracts we have made from Virgil. Ovid also 

 viewed the atmosphere as the cliief cause, and, when 

 speaking of the destruction of the island of ^Egina, he 

 observes, 



" With deadly blasts the fatal south wind blew. 



Infected all the air, and poisoned as it flew. 



******** 



The tabid sheep with sickly bleatings pines. 

 Its wool fast wasting as its strength declines." 



Livy, too, in his account of a pestilence in his time, 

 imputes it to the air. 



Phny, who wrote a few years afterwards, afHrms 

 that these opinions were not general, and that the qua- 

 lity of the food was considered dangerous, more espe- 

 cially the " rust of gi'ass." He speaks of the disease 

 as an effect of God's wrath, and observes that Numa 

 Pompdius, the successor of Romulus, instituted fes- 

 tivals called RiihigaUa Festdyio avert its consequences : 

 these were celebrated in April, because the rust usually 

 began in that month. 



