68 RINDERPEST. 



though still warm, was considerably blackish, and almost coagulated. 

 In opening the upper and middle cavity, the scent was offensive, but 

 tolerable enough ; whereas that proceeding from the lower belly was 

 quite intolerable. In some feio carcasses the viscera differed from 

 their natural state, with regard to their size, their consistence, their 

 contents, color and smell. In several the ijaunch was found very much 

 contracted and dried, and contained a hard substance. In others the 

 lungs were swelled and livid, the liver tumefied, and the braiii tcatery 

 and putrid. Having ordered several of the cattle to be blooded, he 

 found the blood not to issue out of the vessels in a continuous stream, 

 but with a broken and interrupted flux, one part of it not immediately 



succeeding another He found it entirely coagulated without 



any separation of the serum, and attached to the sides of the vessels 

 with a reticular pellicle in the surface exposed to the air. Of the eigh- 

 teen who were bled, all died within a few days, except one which 

 underwent the operation on its first being taken ill."* 



The symptoms and post-mortem appearances, as given by 

 Miehelotti, tally so well with those described by Lancisi, that 

 here forbearing to reserve space for them, though somewhat 

 tempted ; we will give them in an appendix to our classical 

 and curious readers in their original text; with some quota- 

 tions also from Eammazini, not merely to show the exact 

 relation which certain sentences generally quoted bear to the 

 whole description, but to leave the critical in such matters to 

 measure the unfairness, the reckless readiness, or the o'er- 

 weening zeal with which such citations have been used. 



Had it not been necessary to summon the principal wit- 

 nesses (men of erudition and renown in their age) with their 

 entire declarative testimony, without perversion or gloss from 

 hasty criticism ; that this investigation might be a thorough 

 and impartial review of the distempers they observed : we 

 might have been contented with a summary of tlie English 

 distempers given by an admirer of Layard, who has preserved 

 its ancient but quite forgotten synonym, Hyanstricking, a 

 corruption doubtless of an Anglo-Saxon term, compounded of 

 Hyan (cattle disease) and stric (plague) or strica (a stroke), 

 indicating in the compound, either cattle plague or disease by 

 which cattle are suddenly stricken; from which we may infer 



 PhlloBoph. Trans. 1720, No. 365, p. 88. Vol. VI of Abridgment, p. 481. 



