History of Animal Plagues. 163 



a very mi^ty night, domestic and sporting dogs, besides three 

 others, all perished in the town, of which, out of curiosity, I took 

 the trouble to take twenty-one for examination, and I found 

 their necks swollen externally, and their fauces internally, while 

 the muscles of their throats were much inflamed/ ^ Wirth ascribes 

 the losses in Italy amongst the cattle, sheep, and other animals, 

 to anthrax/ Miliary fevers or sweating sickness committed 

 great ravages in mankind in Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, Erfurt, and 

 Jena. Spain and Italy also suffered much from epidemic dis- 

 eases. 



Locusts invaded Poland and Lithuania in three bodies, and 

 in three different directions. The Abbe Ussans, who was an 

 eye-witness, says that in some places where they had died on the 

 top of each other, they lay in masses four feet high. Those 

 which were alive and took refuge on the trees, bent the branches 

 to the ground, so great was their number and weight. The 

 people believed that they had Hebrew sharacters on their wings, 

 and a rabbi pretended to translate them as the 'wrath of God.' 

 Rains came and killed them, and their putrefying bodies so in- 

 fected the air, that the stench was nearly insupportable. Cattle 

 which grazed in the fields afterwards, also died in great numbers, 

 and verv quickly.^ 



A.D. 1 69 1. Glossanthrax in Switzerland. Ramazzini con- 

 tinues, 'The character of the weather in this year ('91) was dry 

 and dusty ; at first, on account of the north winds, and after- 

 wards becai'ise of the continual and scorching heat. As the 

 month of January was drawing to a close, strong north winds 

 blowing at the time, so intense a cold set in that the rivers were 

 frozen over, and ever)'thing was stiff with frost. But since no 

 snow fell, we suffered not only a very cold, but also a very dry 

 winter. About the time of the equinox the frost broke up, and 

 so sudden was the change from intense cold to immoderate heat, 

 that from the time of the equinox to the end of March, the 

 weather did not differ much from summer. In the month of 

 April the heat somewhat relaxed, but it remained as dry as be- 



^ Stegmann. Ephem. Nat. Cur., p. 384. - Wirth. Op. cit., p. 85. 



' L. Figuier. Les Insectes, 1S67, p. 366. 



