GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 43 



Thos. Bates, Esq., F. E. S. and Surgeon to his Majesty's 

 Household, was appointed by the Lord Justices to investigate 

 this plague of 1714, and he has presented, in his paper* read 

 in 1718, before the Eoyal Society of London, a very clear 

 pathological view of this distemper. He alludes, in his 

 report, to the pestilence of 1665, resulting, as was be- 

 lieved, from *'a want of due care in burying the cattle" 

 who perished the year before, and insists upon burialf to the 

 depth of nine or ten feet. He states the mortality in three 

 counties, in 1714-15, at nearly 6,000, and the loss (prime 

 cost) at .£24,500. He limits the period of the severity of 

 this plague to three months, though "it was not entirely 

 suppressed until Christmas," and alludes to its| raging in 

 Holland for three years, at a loss of over 300,000 head of 

 neat stock. 



The following symptoms were furnished to Dr. Bates by 

 the cow-keepers, who had lost from over one-half to seven- 

 eights of their stock : 



" The cows first refused their food. The next day they had husJcish 

 coughs^ and voided excrement like clay ; their heads swelled and 

 sometimes their bodies. In a day or two more there was a great 

 discharge of mucous matter by the nose, and their breath smelled 

 offensively. Lastly, they had severe purging, sometimes bloody, 



which terminated in death ; some died in three days and othera 



in five or six days, but the bulls lived eight or ten days ; . . . . during 

 their whole illness they refused all manner of food, and were very 

 hot:' 



Bates ordered the slaughter of all cattle and disinfection 

 of the premises. But the distemper, owing, as he thought, 

 to the " free intercourse which both masters and servants had 

 had with each others' cows," had " spread the contagion." 



* See Philosoph. Trans., No. 538, p. 872; Vol. VI. of Abridgment, p. 375. 



t Burying with lime, two bush, to a cow ten feet deep, developed a strong scent of meat, which 

 attracted dogs, and caused them to tear up the ground with their feet — otherwise where the ani- 

 mals were buried at less depth and without lime. Philosoph. Trans, vol. XI of Abridgment, 

 p. 255. 



X This might serve if no other proofs were presented as indicating the epizoQtic on the conti- 

 nent and Great Britain as one and the same during this epoch, and tiie observations of Lancibi 

 as well as the treatise of Rammazini, we think confirm the presumption. 



