History of Animal Plagues. 185 



some the tongue was inflamed and covered with red vesicles ; 

 the excretions were sanguinolent, as in maHgnant dysenterv. The 

 principal symptom of the disease, at the commencement, was a 

 difficulty in breathing and a higher temperature than in health. 

 The intestines, near the liver, were found after death covered with 

 bile, and the stomachs inflamed/ Schroeckius desi<2:nated it a 

 malignant dysentery — a name which gave it a widely different 

 signification from those given it by other writers of the period. 

 This diversity of opinions, says Paulet, on the denomination of 

 a disease, proves how difficult it is to characterize it sufficiently. 

 The disease spread from Russia and from Hungary, into Mol- 

 davia, Wallachia, Sclavonia, Istria, and Dalmatia.^ As has been 

 already noticed, this fearfully contagious malady was conveyed 

 from Hungary into Friuli, in Italy ; but its history is best told 

 when the infection had been introduced into the province of 

 Padua. On the 27th of August, 17 11, a drove of infected 

 cattle from Hungary, sent through the agency of Dalmatian 

 merchants, and which had been disembarked at Venice, passed 

 through the village of Sermeola, about two leagues distant from 

 Padua ; and one of these beasts, straying from the others, was 

 taken to a farm named Pampagnini, belonging to the brothers 

 Borromeo, where it was put into one of the cow-houses. In 

 about eight days the whole of the cattle on this farm became ill, 

 and soon all died, with the exception of one, which had been 

 treated by a seton in the neck. The disease soon spread into the 

 neighbouring districts, and it was believed, and the public records 

 sanctioned this belief, that this Hungarian ox had conveyed the 

 germs of the pestilence.^ Though Lancisi mentions this fact, 

 and although it has been recognized by many authors^as the only 

 source of the epizooty in the whole of Italy, yet a comparison 

 of the preceding observations will show that it had many other 

 sources. Already, in this year, it had cruelly devastated the whole 

 of the Venetian territory, had scourged Mantua, Brescia, Pavia, 

 Voghera, Tortona, Alessandria, Parma, and Genoa, and had even 

 reached Switzerland and the kingdom of Naples. Nevertheless, 



^ Ka7iold. Op. cit., pp. 51 — 53- 



2 Epistola de Padre Borronuv, Tcatino, scritta ad uii suo amico (Lancisi). 

 Rome, 15th Dec. 171 1. Naples, 171 2. 



