HISTORY. 13 



from Vienna eastward of Pesth) is wholly free at any time 

 from this noxious distemper, although there are long periods 

 when it is measurably kept in abeyance. 



We may venture to doubt the reliability of the assertions 

 made in regard to the antiquity of this pest in the steppes, 

 because Professor Simonds admits, in his testimony before 

 the Eoyal Commission (1st Eep., p. 7), that no symptoms 

 of the disease, as it is said to have shown itself in the 

 mediaeval period, are sufficiently described to identify it with 

 the malady as now existent. When the records of its identity 

 were first made, or where they are to be found, we are at 

 a loss to divine. We have met with no elucidation of these 

 topics, nor of the kindred inquiry, whether the present dis- 

 ease is, by a law of modification operating from age to age,- 

 presenting, during its present cycle, a new phase or a totally 

 distinct manifestation. And yet it is clear, that those who 

 hold the theory of identity, if baffled in its maintenance by 

 symptoms and morbid phenomena which show variance and 

 disparity not only in degree but in kind, should be prepared 

 to defend the theory of transition from one species of viru- 

 lent brooding disease to another. But of this anon, when 

 we come to the pathological investigation of the Pest. 



As to its origin or its native home we are in less doubt. 

 Professor Eenault, president of the veterinary school of 

 Alfort, in his memoir to the French minister of agriculture, 

 has, after a thorough investigation, established the fact that 

 this steppe-murrain never broke out spontaneously {i. e. as an 

 enzootic) in any country or locality but that of the Eussian 

 steppes, and, as we have before intimated, in the Asiatic part 

 thereof. 



He also asserts that its transmission to other parts of the 

 civilized world has been directly by cattle contaminated with 

 the poison when they left their native pastures ; poison, as 

 we may suppose, if not already brought in contact with the 

 blood-corpuscles, at least lying ensconced in hair or on hoof, 

 furtively awaiting the fatal lick or smell that ensures its ab- 

 sorption by the system. It is very easy to imagine how a 

 virus of this sort might, on this theory, work out all the 



