GENEEAL PATHOLOGY. 57 



October, 1711, and received the rest on the spot from persons 

 of integrity and credit. His account bears the stamp of his 

 extensive skill and repute as a doctor of medicine. We shall 

 give it quite at length : 



" Almost all the sick cattle refused every kind of food and drink ; 

 they hung their heads, had shiverings in their skin and limbs, they 

 breathed with difficulty^ and their expiration in particular was 

 attended with a sort of rattling noise ; they were so feeble that they 

 could scarcely go or stand upon their legs. Some few of them eat a 

 little and drank very much, others had fluxes of excrements variously 

 colored, of an offensive smell, and frequently tinged with blood ; many 

 of them had their heads and their bellies swelled in such a manner, 

 that in clapping them with the hand on the paunches, or along the 

 vertebrsB of the loins, they sounded like a dry bladder when full 

 blown. In some the urine was very turbid, in others of a bright flame 

 color. In comparing the pulses of the sound cattle with those of the 

 diseased, he found the latter to be quicker and weaker. There was 

 but little heat perceivable by the touch in any of them ; their tongues 

 were soft and moist, but their breath was exceedingly offensive. 

 Besides these particulars, he was informed by those who attended 

 the sick cattle, and by other persons worthy of credit, that in some 

 of the beasts they had observed crude tumours in several parts 

 of the body, as also watery pustules, and disorderly motions of the 

 head, with dry, blade and fissured tongues ; that in others there were 

 tumours which came to maturation, with putrid matter issuing from 

 the mouth and nostrils, worms in the faeces and in the eyes, bloody 

 sweats and shedding of hair." 



The pathological description follows : 



" In comparing the flesh of the cattle dead of the distemper with 

 that of others killed for the market, he found the muscles in the for- 

 mer, lying immediately under the skin^ to be something livid. Having 

 opened the three cavities of the body, he applied himself with the 

 utmost diligence to examine the brain, with its membranes ; the 

 trachea, oesophagus, lungs ; heart, with its auricles, the vena cava, 

 aorta, and diaphragm ; the liver, spleen, and other parts of the lower 

 belly ; in all which there was no discernible difference, either as to 

 figure, size, contents, situation or connection with the neighboring 

 parts, from what was observed in sound cattle, killed by the butcher, 

 except the particulars hereinafter mentioned. The blood found in the 

 ventricles of the heart, in the i^ulmonary vessels, in the aorta and cava, 



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