Histo7'y of Animal Plagues. 247 



vigilance in observing and enforcing sanitary laws, the effect 

 of which will be far more enduring and profitable than preserva- 

 tive remedies. Columella's injunctions should never be neglected 

 — separate the healthy from the unhealthy. 



It is absolutely necessary that all communication should be 

 interdicted. No straw, hay, sacks, or other articles should be 

 carried from the infected regions ; the veterinary surgeons, at- 

 tendants, dogs, and ev^erybody and everything capable of trans- 

 porting the virus, should be kept away from the healthy cattle. 

 Lancisi was not slow to aver, that the most certain way to 

 suppress the contagion was to break off' all communication, 

 direct or indirect, with the infected. We know with what 

 negligence the edicts of kings and princes are treated in all 

 that concerns salubrity and the watching of roads. Those 

 who infringe these edicts ought to be severely punished, as 

 well as those who do not bury deep enough the bodies of those 

 beasts which hav^e perished. Dogs and wolves may, in these 

 instances, disinter the carcases and scatter abroad the corrup- 

 tion; thus occasioning malignant epidemic fevers. 



When the animals begin to recover, they ought always to 

 be left for eight days in their stables, and their diet should be 

 very light and plentifully diluted with water. The air should 

 be purified by preparations of incense, laurel, hyssop, and juniper 

 leaves. The walls of the stables should be thoroughly cleansed, 

 and the bodies of the animals should also be well washed with 

 vinegar before allowing them to rejoin their companions at 

 pasture. Time may enable us to discover more efficacious 

 means than those which we have proposed to avert this con- 

 tajrion of cattle, and which has for so lono; a time rava<red nearly 

 the whole of Europe. 



A.D. 1731-2. The winter of 1730-1 was cold and dry, the 

 summer hot and dry. In March, a severe shock of an earth- 

 quake, and in July another in China. In 1732 the winter was 

 mild, the spring wet, and the summer hot and damp. Pestilen 

 tial fever killed 1500 persons in one week, in London, during the 

 month of April. Droughts were prevalent, and during these 

 years the Arciia Vhworrktca, a particular kind of moth, was so 

 numerous in f'rance that people were alarmed. The oaks, elms, 



