History of Animal Plagues. 87 



sheep. It is asserted that the sheep of the South Atlas,, Africa, 

 are the progenitors of the Spanish Merino;^ and, according to 

 Erman/ the original Spanish sheep were black, with a coarse 

 and very inferior wool, till the Roman colonists settled there and 

 introduced a taste for rural pursuits. Marcus Columella (A.D.40) 

 was the first to notice the wild mouflons at Cadiz, which were 

 on their wav from Africa to the Arena at Rome, and which race 

 he afterwards used for the improvement of the Spanish breed. Did 

 these African sheep introduce the disease into Europe at this 

 period, when they were exported from a region where the small- 

 pox of man appears to have had its earliest home ? It will be 

 seen hereafter that this breed introduced into France and Ger- 

 many a malady unknown amongst them in Spain, and never 

 seen or heard of until they were imported into those countries 

 — the contagious foot disease. Columella was the first to breed 

 the wild moufion with the Spanish sheep; he was also the first 

 to describe an extremely contagious and fatal disease amongst 

 sheep, which he designated ignis sacer, but which the shepherds 

 called pusula. Was this the variolous disease of the ovine 

 species? It would scarcely be safe to pronounce in a positive 

 manner; and unfortunately the paucity of writers between the 

 1st and 9th or loth centuries, when the malady is for the first 

 time properly named, is a great bar to further investigation 

 in this direction. 



For the year 1280, there is mention made of perhaps this 

 same sheep mortality, which may have extended to Wales. ' There 

 was a great murrain among sheep [magnum morina ovium), 

 which began in the preceding year.^ ^ 



A distinguished professor,* in discussing the agricultural 

 history for this epoch, writes: 'Among the diseases peculiar to 

 sheep, the scab is very frequently mentioned. This disease 

 made its appearance at or about the year 1288 (?), and became 

 endemic. It was at first treated with copperas and verdigris; 

 but in time, that is, at about the close of the 13th century, it wag 



> Tristram. The Great Sahara, p. 56. 



2 Travels in Siberia, vol. ii. p. 161. ' Annales Camhrire. 



*• y. Rogers. Mist, of Agriculture in the 13th and 14th centuries, vol. i. 



