26o History of Animal Plagues. 



of the season, or rather the continued moisture of several seasons 

 successively^ yet that no general rot appeared among the sheep 

 now nor for many years past/ Therefore, he argues, that the 

 murrain or pestilence among cattle ' which invades sometimes 

 this, sometimes that species of animals, is not from mere redund- 

 ant moisture, but from other causes/^ 



In this year the Cattle Plague was again introduced into 

 Italy, but this time by war. The pest had not yet been extin- 

 guished in Poland or Germany up to this time, but was in all 

 likelihood maintained in an active condition durino; the war for 

 the Polish throne in 1733. Certain it is, that when Charles 

 Emmanuel of Savoy, in alliance with France and Spain, com- 

 menced the series of military operations that resulted in the 

 capture of the Milanese territory in 1738, the contagion was 

 brought into Italy, which had scarcely begun to recover from 

 the visitation of 1730. Austrian armies had invaded that 

 country, carrying with them, as usual, Hungarian or Steppe 

 cattle. It soon spread over the whole of Italy. A mandate, 

 issued at Venice on the 9th of October, shows that it was then 

 devastating Friuli, Bassanese, Trevigiano, and in the Coneg- 

 lianese." On the 3rd of December it had reached the provinces 

 of Verona, Brescia, and Crema,^ and on the 4th of January fol- 

 lowing, its dreadful presence was felt at Mantua and Milan. 

 From thence it spread rapidly, and was soon carried over the 

 Roman States, and into Piedmont, where it raged until 1739.* 



Ulloa, who was a resident in South America from this year 

 until 1746, is the first author who has told us of the existence 

 of, and describes, the 'distemper^ in dogs in that country.^ Of 

 its oftentimes prevailing in Peru in recent days we have ample 

 testimony, but according to Rengger,*^ it is unknown in Paraguay, 

 a fact sufficiently worthy of notice. 



A deadly disease appears to have been prevalent amongst 

 cattle in Scotland about this period. Dr Gilchrist, a phy- 



1 Rictty. Op. cit 2 Bottani. Op. cit., p. 155. ^ ji^j^^ p i5j_ 



* For descriptions of this outbreak, see Mazzuchelli. Notizie Pratiche, &c. 

 Milan, 1736. Pascoli. Delle Risposte, <S;c. Rome, 1736. 



^ Ulloa. Relacion Historica del Viage a la America Meridional. Madrid, 

 1748, vol. i. ; also Noticias Americanas. Madrid, 1792. 



^ Rengger. Saugthiere von Paraguay, p. 156. 



