66 RINDERPEST. 



with a serum op its sides. This hard and compact body, like chalk , 

 in the omasus, is the first product of the contagious miasms."* 



This description corresponds tolerably well, both in the 

 sketch of living symptoms and the antopsy of the dead, with 

 two other accounts : one by Michelotti, of the same mur- 

 rain described by Eammazini, and one by Winder, of the 

 plague which preceded it. 



In the year 1G82, on the border of Italy, there arose a dis- 

 temper among cattle, which spread into Switzerland, Wir- 

 temburg and other provinces of the Empire, extending at the 

 observed rate of nearly two German miles in twenty-four 

 hours until it reached Poland. Its march was without inter- 

 mission ; no neighboring parish escaped. It was a com- 

 plete desolation. 



It seemed to propagate itself in the form of a blue mist, which fell 

 upon those pastures where the cattle grazed, insomuch that whole 

 herds returned home sick, being very dull ; forbearing their food, 

 and most of them would die in twenty-four hours. Upon dissection 

 there were discovered large and corrupted spleen, sphacelous and 

 corroded tongues, and some had angina maligjia. The persons who 

 carelessly managed their cattle, without a due regard to their own 

 health, were themselves infected, and died like their beasts. Tlie 

 method of cure was this: "The tongue was carefully examined, 

 and if they found any aphthce or blisters, whether white, yellow, or 

 black, they were obliged to rub, scratch and tear the tongue with a 

 silver instrument until it bled ; they then wiped away the blood and 

 corruption with new unwashed linen. This done, a lotion for the 

 tongue was used, made of salt and good vinegar." 



The antidote and remedial prescription were the same. 



" Take of soot, gunpowder, brimstone, salt,f equal parts ( a large 

 spoonful for a dose), and as much water as is necessary to wash it 

 down." 



Michelotti, was eye witness of the greater part of what 

 he described, having been in the Venitian territories about 



 Phllosoph. Trans. No. 888, p. 46; Vo'. VI of Abridgment, p. 79. 



t Doubtless, Mb. Needham, taking the popular side of the theory of identity of marrains in 

 modern times, and ascertaining from continental veterlnarlcs, that salt was the sovereign 

 remedy, was induced in his elegant essay, read at Brussels in 1T76, to recommend this agent as 

 the specific remedy for the murrain of 1745, a view which Latard proceeds to reftite in his letter 

 to Joseph Banks. Philosoph. Trans, ubl sup., and Cattle Plague, p. 806. 



