90 MURRAIN, OR PESTILENTIAL FEVER. 



draining has been introduced. When the murrain so sadly prevailed 

 in foreign countries, and in England, it uniformly commenced in, and 

 was chiefly confined to, some low marshy district. This was parti- 

 cularly the case in the murrain which prevailed in France in 1779. 

 It was principally confined to the low meadows and marshes, and it 

 appeared soon after an unusual inundation had subsided. In Italy, 

 where the murrain has been more prevalent and fatal than in any 

 other country, it ahvays commences in some of the extensive and 

 pestilential marshes with which the Italian coast abounds. In the 

 account of a pestilence that carried off thousands of cattle in Hun- 

 gary, it is said that the spring had been rainy, with great changes in 

 the temperature of the atmosphere. This will afford a useful hint to 

 the farmer as to the system of agriculture he should pursue, and the 

 situation to which he should, if possible, remove his cattle when any 

 pestilential disease breaks out. The infected cattle, and the herd 

 generally, should not only be removed to some rather elevated and 

 dry situation, but sheltered as much as possible from the sudden 

 variations of the external air, at least by night. 



It is to be hoped, too, that some legislative provision will be made 

 to prevent as much as possible the spread of the disease ; that every 

 animal seriously affected shall be immediately consigned to the 

 slaughter, and that no portion of the hide or carcass shall by any 

 means be permitted to be used, but the whole deeply and speedily 

 buried. 



When the murrain was so prevalent in Holland, and it seemed as 

 if every beast was destined to fall a victim to it, some speculative 

 men had recourse to inoculation. The matter discharged from the 

 nostrils, or from an ulcer of a beast not apparently affected with any 

 very virulent form of the disease, was inserted under the skin of a 

 sound animal. The disease was produced, sure enough, but with 

 very doubtful and often lamentable effect. In some cases a worse 

 malady was induced. In a few it was materially mitigated; a consi- 

 derable proportion still died, and doubtless some who would have 

 escaped the disease had it not been for the inoculation. 



lExtract of a letter to the American Editor from J. E. G. Kennedy, JSIeadzille, Penn- 

 sylvania. 

 *' I received some months since, from a Hollander who purchased a farm a few 

 years since in my neighbourhood, some powders for the cure of murrain in cattle. 

 After having resided here a few years, the frequency of this disease induced him to 

 Bend to Holland for the medicine mentioned, and which he avers was a certain 

 remedy there within his own knowledge. The receipt for its manufacture is a secret, 

 and lodged with one family in the Hague. Its reputation in Holland is very exten- 

 sive. Mr. Kcchler, who gave me the article, is a remarkably intelligent man, noted 

 for his correct agricultural taste and knowledge among his friends, and I perfectly 

 rely on his veracity. He would say nothing that he did not believe true: and as a 

 proof of his standing in his own country. I might mention his having received, from 

 a nobleman of Holland an invitation to become the manager of an extensive estate 

 in that country, and the inducement such, that he has rented his farm and gone to 



