History of Animal Plagues. 221 



'His Majesty was further pleased, on the solicitation of the 

 four gentlemen, to grant a brief for the .^24,500; but the many 

 false reports that were then industriously propagated to lessen 

 the value of these poor men's losses so frustrated that charity, 

 that the entire sum collected (the charges of collecting being first 

 paid) was but ,^6278 2s. 6d., which on a dividend amounted 

 to five shillings and three halfpence in the pound, computing 

 their loss as above, at six pounds per cow ; though if we consider 

 their contracts with brewers for grains, their rent of grounds, 

 which lay useless, servants' wages, 8cc., their real losses may (by 

 a modest computation) be allowed to be ten pounds for every 

 cow that died.' ^ 



Some observations on this outbreak in London and its 

 vicinity were made by Mr Bradley,^ in a treatise on the epidemic 

 plague at Marseilles. He imagined the bovine malady was due 

 to insects. Dr I^obb^ also gives it a brief notice, and Dr Short* 

 offers an abstract of Bates's account, and for 1715 adds: 'The 

 disease of the black cattle, that was so fatal last year near Lon- 

 don, reached Essex in January, and did great mischief.' This 

 may be an error, as Mr Bates says the pest was entirely sup- 

 pressed at Christmas, 17 14. 



Every effc)rt appears to have been made not only by the go- 

 vernment, but also by those intrusted with carrying out its orders, 

 to extinguish the disease. One of the minutes extracted from the 

 Privy Council Register, and dated at the Court of St James's, 

 22nd Nov., 1 7 14, refers to the memorial of Thomas Bates, Sur- 

 geon, touching the mortality of cattle, and which was referred to 

 a committee. ' Upon reading this day at the Board a memorial 

 of Thomas Bates, Surgeon, touching the mortality among cattle, 

 and representing how necessary it is that such cattle as die thereof 

 be buried deep, to prevent any infection in the air, which if 



• A Brief Account of the Contagious Disease which raged among the Milch Cows 

 near London in the year 1714, and of the Methods that were taken for Suppressing 

 it. Communicated to the Royal Society by Thoirtas Bates, Esq., Surgeon to his 

 Majesty's household and R.S.S. Philosophical Transactions, N. 538, p. 872. 



2 Richard Bradley, F-R.S. The Plague at Marseilles considered : with Re- 

 marks upon the Plague in General, &c., 172 1. 



3 T. Lobb, M.D. Letters relating to the Plague and Contagious Distempers, 



1745. * ^' ^'^°'''- *^^I'- '^''•' ^"'' "■ ''''■ '"• ''*■ 



