History of Animal Plagues. iin 



second of sheep in Ireland. In Italy, Gaul, Germany, Spain, 

 and other countries, and also in Asia, famine and plaoues 

 reigned for nearly seven years. At this period Don Alonzo V., 

 King of Aragon, surnamed The Wise, subdued the kingdom of 

 Naples. In consequence, however, of a stubborn resistance 

 shown in the province of the Abruzo, and the toil and hardship 

 inseparable from a desperate and lingering war, the cavalry, 

 almost the only arm employed, suffered very much, the horses 

 dying by hundreds from an epizooty of a particular character. 

 The king, in view of this great mortality, ordered his major- 

 domo, Manuel Diaz, to assemble all the veterinary surgeons of 

 the cavalry to investigate the nature of the malady, and to com- 

 pose a book on veterinary medicine. This order was complied 

 with, and veterinary science thereby received a fresh impulse, as 

 is noted in the Spanish Hippatria, or veterinary manual of 

 Spain. ^ 



A.D. I-I45. 'A great mortalitie of the cattle throughout 

 Ireland; both want of victuals and dearth of corn in Ireland 

 also.'^ 



A.D. 1450. In Ireland, 'a hard warlike year was this, with 

 many storms and great losse of cattle.^ ^ 



A.D. 1456. In this year a comet appeared which struck 

 terror throughout Europe, already in a sad state of consternation 

 from the inroads of the Turks. Pope Calixtus III., as supersti- 

 tious as the ignorant masses, or desirous of gratifying them, 

 ordered a prayer, in which he conjured the Turks and the comet 

 alike. The wheat was all destroyed by red blight. 



A.D. 1462. 'Create frost in this yeare that slaughtered many 

 flocks of birds in Ireland.^* Fabyn speaks of the King of Eng- 

 land, Edward IV., being in this year 'vysyted with the syke- 

 nesse of pockys (smal.l-pox). ' '" 



A.D. 1464. An ej)idemic colic or cholera in Ireland, which 



^ Villalba. Epid. Espaii. i. p. 98. This work was written in the I-imousin- 

 Calalane dialect, and was multiplied by many written copies. At a later periotl it 

 was translated into Castilian and printed. Perhaps the earliest edition is one that 

 had the following title : Libro de Albeyteria, por Don Manuel Diaz. V'^i"'igo9a, 

 1495. Another addition, corrected, appeared at Toledo, in 15 11. 



''■ Mac Firbis. Annals of Ireland. =* Ibid. ' H'id. 



* Fabyn. Chronicle. London, 1559. Vol. ii. pt. 7. 



