128 History of Aiiimal Plagues. 



of poisoning the pastures. Wirth thinks the malady was 'milz- 

 brand/ or splenic apoplexy — a form of anthrax. 



A.D. 1508. The summer very wet ; inundations. In 

 Austria an epizooty amongst cattle and hogs, which was named 

 lues intercus — plague, or dropsy under the skin.^ Locusts devas- 

 tated Spain, and epidemic pestilence followed. 



A.D. 1513-14. After a severe winter, a sudden thaw, famine, 

 rains, and inundations, an epizooty, contagious in its nature, 

 appeared in Friuli, from whence it spread to the States of 

 Venice, thence to Verona, and at last to France and England. 

 An epidemic in mankind raged at the same time in Italy and 

 in England. 



Fracastor, who is the first writer to give detailed svmptoms 

 of these animal plagues in modern times, describes the malady. 

 He says : ' We refer to the unusual contagion of the year 1514, 

 which attacked oxen alone. It was first seen in the country 

 around Friuli, and gradually, but yet rapidly, was it carried to 

 Venice^ and from thence to our own countrv (Verona). The 

 ox at first, and without any manifest cause, ceased to eat. But 

 the herdsmen noticed in those infected a certain roughness and 

 small pustules over the whole mouth and palate {asperitas quce- 

 dam et parvce pustulce percipiehantur in palato et ore toto). It 

 was necessary to separate those infected from the rest of the herd, 

 otherwise the whole became contaminated. By degrees the spots 

 'or pustules descended to the shoulders, and thence to the feet. 

 Almost all in which this symptom was noticed recovered, but of 

 those who did not exhibit this extension of the eruption the greatest 

 part died.'- No treatment of the maladv is indicated. In recent 

 times the nature of this pest, as described by Fracastor, has 

 given rise to some discussion. Paulet, who has given us a class- 

 ical work on epizootic diseases, says that Ma maladie en ques- 

 tion n^etoit autre chose qu'une Ji^vre pest'ilentielle exanthe- 

 matique, qui se terminoit par une eruption critique aux parties 

 anterieures du corps, de la meme maniere que les fitvres eriip- 

 tives qu'on observe sur les hommes, telles que la petite verole, la 

 rougeole, les fievres pourpreuses; mais elle ressemble encore 



^ Chronic. Mellic. 

 - Fracastorus. Tract, de Contagiosis Morbis, lib. i. cap. 12. 



