History of Animal Plagues. 133 



authors (but erroneously, as I have shown), there is mention 

 made of the small-pox in sheep. Joubert, a physician, in allud- 

 ing to the plague in man, thus notices the disease : ' Neither do 

 those people think wrongly, in my opinion, who argue that the 

 corpses of men who die by the plague are more hurtful to man 

 than those of horses are to horses, and of other animals to ani- 

 mals of their own species. Sometimes, nevertheless, it happens, 

 as Ficinus relates, that the plague passes from men to pigs, not 

 on account of anv similarity in their dispositions, but in their 

 flesh. The people of Montpellier commonly call the pest in 

 sheep picota {' picotte,^ the French term for variola ovina) : Mons- 

 pelienses pestem pecoribus famiUarem, Piccottam appellant. If 

 we may believe Arnoldus Villanovanus, the plague of man never, 

 attacks sheep, and that of sheep never attacks man. In pre-/ 

 vious years, as I hear, a certain pest attacked the cats alone ini 

 Lutetia, Parrhisii, and carried off an innumerable quantity.^ ^ ^ 



'After Lent there came a great mortality among the sheep, 

 so that several thousand in my neighbourhood alone died, and 

 the same occurred in other parts.' ^ 



A.D. 1571. An epizooty among cattle, and an epidemy in 

 mankind at JVJemmingen.^ 



A.D. 1572. In Ireland ' there was a great mortality of men 

 and cattle in this year.' * 



A.D. 1578. Epizootic disease among cats and poultry at 

 Paris.^ 



A.D. 1580-1. Influenza in man, as well as malignant fever 

 and small-pox, raged over Europe. According to Riverius, a pro- 

 digious plague of insects appeared in April and May, immediate- 

 ly before the breaking out of the influenza. They were supposed' 

 to rise out of the earth ; and so dense a multitude were they^ 

 that the daylight was obscured by them, and they were crushed 

 by millions on the roads." The air seems to have been tainted 

 to a strange degree, for birds felt its evil influence, and abandoned 



^ Jouk-rl. De Pestc Libellus. Lugd. 1567. Sec tlic year 1277. 



2 Spau^enberg. Op. cit., p. 489. 



' Erhardt. Topograpliy of Memmingen, p. 63. 



* Annals of the Four Masters. '" Pauld. Vol. i. ji. 56. 



* Riverius. Opera Omnia Medica. Lugd. 16C9, p. 585. 



