2i6 History of Animal Plagues. 



sweeter to the taste^ and in greater plenty ; but the spring pre- 

 ceding this distemper was all over Europe so dry, that the like 

 has not been known in the memory of any one living; the con- 

 sequence of which was little grass, and that so dry and void of 

 that firmness which it has in other years, that I could not hear 

 of one cow-keeper who had observed his cows to have that 

 purgation in the same degree as usual, and very few who had ob- 

 served any at all. They all agreed that their cows had not given 

 above half so much milk that summer as they did in others ; 

 that some of them were almost dry ; that the milk they did give 

 was much thicker and yellower than in other years. It was 

 observed by the whole town that very little of the milk then sold 

 would boil without turning ; and it is a known truth, that the 

 weakest of the common purges you can give a cow entirely takes 

 away her milk ; from all which circumstances, I think it is 

 evident that the want of that natural purgation was the sole 

 cause of this disease, by producing those obstructions which 

 terminated in a putrefaction, and made this distemper con- 

 tagious. 



' During my daily conversation at that time with cow-keepers, 

 8cc., there occurred many other circumstances of less moment 

 to confirm me in this opinion; but as there was no one reason 

 to give me the least notion of any other cause, I shall not 

 trouble the reader with a useless detail of them. 



^ Cows are likewise subject to a purgation (though in a less 

 degree) from the same quality in the grass, about the latter end 

 of September, which is called the latter spring, and which, I 

 believe, contributed not a little to the preventing the increase of 

 this distemper ; for this purgation coming so soon after the dis- 

 ease appeared, it is not unreasonable to suppose that it freed such 

 cows as were not much injured from the ill effects of these 

 obstructions, occasioned by the want of their vernal evacuations. 



' Several physicians attempted the cure, and made many essays 

 for that purpose ; but the dissections convinced me of the im- 

 probability of their succeeding, with which I acquainted their 

 Excellencies. However, they having received the following re- 

 cipe and directions from some in Holland, said to have been used 

 there with good success, gave me orders to make trial of it. But 



