History of Anwial Plagues. 83 



Shall every sheep be whole, that of this mcU 

 Drinketh a draught : take keep of that I tell.' 



It is not until nearly four centuries after the Saxon leech- 

 book had been written, and a century after Chaucer, in undeni- 

 able English, explicitlv designates the malady by the name now 

 familiar to us (though in mentioning ^ca^ the poet says nothing of 

 rot, an indigenous malady), that the earliest notice of it is to be 

 found on the continent. 



Tn the Avocal PatheJin (the Craftv Lawyer), a farce which ap- 

 pears to have been published in France in 1460, though it may 

 have been played before that time, we learn that the disease 

 was sometimes prevalent amongst the flocks, and was known as 

 claveUe (from claims, a nail; probably owing to the way in 

 which the scabs or pustules studded the skin like nail-heads), 

 the popular name for it in France at the present day. One of the 

 actors, Agnelet (lambkin), blames it for causing a considerable 

 mortality.^ The first notice we have of it by a medical writer 

 is in 157H. 



Some writers have believed the disease known as pusula 

 (another form of expression for pustula, a blister, pimple, or pus- 

 tule) by the Romans, and mentioned by Marcus Columella to be 

 ovine small-pox; but there is little proof that such was the case. 

 On the contrary, we have it distinctly stated that it was the ignis 

 sacer. ' Est etiom itisanahiUs ignis sacer, (juem piisulam vacant 

 pastores.' ^ We will examine this part of the subject hereafter. 

 At present our researches into the history of small-pox in sheep 

 effectually demolishes the absurd notion of a great French na- 



"^ Laharpe. Cours de Litterat., part ii. chap. vii. Luard. Melange de Litterat. 

 Hist, du Theatre Fran9aise, vol. iv. p. 36. 



- There is some difficulty here in the stereotyped phrase ignis sacer. The 

 ancients applied the words to many skin affections, we have reason to believe ; and 

 with the exception of the extreme contagiousness of that malady, its chiefly affect- 

 ing the surface of the body, and its being designated a pustular disease by the 

 Roman shepherds, we have no proof as to its identity with small-pox. Tiie ignis 

 sacer has usually been supposed to be gangrenous erysipelas, wliich is sometimes 

 epizootic amongst the flocks of southern countries {Gelle. Pathologic Bovine), 

 and is thougiit by some to he only a form of anthrax. (See Gaspariu. Maladies 

 des Betes k Lainc. Rcynal. Dictionnaire de Mud. &c., Veterinaircs, vol. vi. 

 Art. ' Erysipele.') Al a certain stage of the malady vesicles or bulla" are formed, 

 which may have misled the shepherds, who would think them pustules. 



