7 6 History of Animal Plagues. 



appeared in horses, in England and France, of a most fatal cba- 

 racter, called the ' evil of the tongue/ or tongue ill,^ which was 

 in all probability of an antbracoid nature. 



' This year was remarkable in Ireland for a great drought, 

 by which multitudes of cattle perished/^ 



This anthrax or carbonous disease has been considered by 

 some modern medical authorities quite a recent and an exotic 

 malady in England. How far this is correct the above evidence 

 will testify; indeed, we have every reason to believe, that, from 

 time immemorial, anthrax and antbracoid fever have been present 

 among the lower animals, both domestic and feral, and that it has 

 been communicated from them to the human species, and to other 

 creatures which may have partaken of the flesh of these diseased 

 beasts. The frequent mention of ' blains ^ and M^lack blains' 

 (ble^ene, blacan ble-jene) — terms Still employed to designate a par- 

 ticular form of this class of aifections in cattle — as afflicting man- 

 kind, in the early Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, and the continually- 



the domestic animals, and even those of the deer tribe, appearing sporadically, 

 enzootically, or epizootically. It is believed to be highly contagious, passing from 

 one animal to another, even of a different species, but not perhaps from man to man. 

 In the early days of Britain, when the country was badly cultivated and the ground 

 undrained — when there were many extensive marshes, and much land covered with 

 swamps and vegetable matter in a decomposing state, such as now exist in Russia, 

 where malignant pustule and other forms of this malady rage — severe epizootics must 

 have been frequent. The form of anthrax described by Matthew of Paris would ap- 

 pear to be that now commonly known as black quarter or splenic apoplexy, a dis- 

 ease in cattle often arising in our time from the same causes as those enumerated 

 by the worthy historian. 



That form which attacked horses is the one technically termed glossanthrax, 

 and is now, so far as I am aware, unknown in Britain. Indeed, I can find no 

 mention of its occurrence in this animal for some centuries. On the continent, and 

 especially in Russia, the equine species is particularly liable to attacks of anthrax. 

 The symptoms, when the tongue is the special seat of disease, have been noted in 

 France, where the malady is then termed chancre volant. Large bladders filled 

 with a reddish-coloured liquid form on that organ ; in a short time they burst, and 

 give rise to ulcers which rapidly become a mass of gangrene. The tongue sloughs 

 away in pieces, and death quickly takes place in the midst of convulsions. 



Cattle die in from six to twenty-four hours after being attacked. It is curious 

 to find a disease, probably of the same nature, now very prevalent in America 

 amongst deer, and designated ' tongue evil.' 



' Dunstaple. Short. Op. cit., p. 149. • 



"^ Smith. History of Waterford. 



