DISEASES OF THE OX AND SHEEP. 169 



days. It is essentially amenable to judicious treatment, and is 

 not fatal as a rule, provided that the patients be tended with care 

 and skill. The malady seems to have no incubative stage. 

 Both lungs may be more or less uniformly affected throughout 

 their entire substance. If the lung is examined after death, the 

 yellowish interlobular bands, so characteristic of the epizootic 

 pleuro-pneumonia, are not so markedly visible. 



Epizootic Pleuro-Pneumonia (Historical, Geographical, 

 AND General). — The earliest records which can be found re- 

 lating to this justly dreaded scourge point to its prevalence in 

 Central Europe. Valentine speaks of an epizooty, which may 

 possibly be regarded as contagious pleuro-pneumonia, as having 

 occurred in Hesse in the year 1693. Bourgelat mentions the 

 disease existing in Franche-Comte in 1769, calling it murie. 

 The malady appeared in Prussia in 1802, soon spreading over 

 North Germany, in Russia in 1824, in Belgium in 1827, in 

 Holland in 1833. From Holland Epizootic Pleuro-Pneumonia, 

 then raging in Friesland, was imported into Great Britain in the 

 year 1841. The scourge is now more or less prevalent in all our 

 colonies, and, in fact, in nearly all parts of the world. It is 

 still, however, said to be almost unknown in Hungary, and has, 

 we believe, never yet appeared in Normandy nor in Algeria. The 

 disease, now thoroughly established in the British Isles, breaks 

 out with greater or less virulence in certain districts from time 

 to time, carrying off large numbers of cattle, and this despite 

 the most stringent regulations which issue from Her Majesty's 

 Most Honourable Privy Council. This is nowise to be attri- 

 buted to any omission or to any want of vigilance on the part 

 of the Agricultural Department of the Privy Council Office, 

 but simply to the fact that there seems to be no possible means 

 of absolutely stamping out the disease. To this topic we shall 

 refer again. 



The malignant fever we are discussing is spoken of a^ con- 

 tagious, or zymotic, or epizootic pleuro-pneumonia, and is also 

 designated by various other names. It may be described as a 

 sub-acute specific disease, which spreads with fatal rapidity 

 through the medium of the air. The manifestations are seen in 

 the bronchi, and in the lung-tissue and the lining membranes of 

 one or both lungs. There is an extensive exudation of a fluid 

 in the interior of, and on the lining membranes of, one or both 



