History of Animal Plagues. 263 



powdered sal ammoniac^ and healed speedily. Human beings 

 were treated in the same way, except that they were made to 

 take the herb in decoction, and it proved with them equally 

 efficacious.^ 



A.D. 1739. In the beginning of this year the first great po- 

 tato rot occurred in Ireland. It was believed to have been caused 

 solely by the intense frost that began about Christmas^ 1739, and 

 continued until late in the following spring. 'At the conclusion 

 of the year 1739, there happened an exceedingly cold winter, 

 remarkable for a very severe frost, continuing until spring. 

 From this dreadful and indescribable hard frost, there arose, 

 shortly afterwards, not only a great destruction of all sorts of 

 cattle, but a lamentable blight and calamitous rot of plants 

 and vegetables of all kinds, for the very birds of the air and 

 other animals used for human sustenance perished in great num- 

 bers from the excessive harshness of the cold season.^ ^ 



A.D. 1740. An exceedingly severe winter in England. 'In- 

 expressible was the damage done by this frost; for the rainy 

 summer and harvest had caused a rot among sheep in low coun- 

 tries ; and this storm starved and killed many in the high moors, 



so as in some parts scarce was there seed left to breed on 



Many horses and much cattle were lost. . . . Spain was said to 

 suffer near as much that winter by deluging rains. ^^ The barley 

 and fruit crops were destroyed, and famine raged in many 

 countries. 



In Ireland, Rutty alludes to the severe frost of 1739-40, and 

 the destruction of the potatoes, vast quantities of small birds and 

 game, as well as fish. He also mentions sheep dying from ' rot,* 

 and many from 'red-water' (sanguineus ascites); deer likewise 

 perished in such numbers, that in the King's (Phoenix) Park, 

 Dublin, out of 2000, 800 were lost. The rabbits suffered so 

 severely, that they did not reach their usual abundance for nine 

 or ten years after. He also says : ' Thestrand in the neighbour- 



in the Hort. Lugdan. Batavorum, p. 89, Fab. 41, and called Cyamts Floridui 

 Odoratus Tttrcicus, seu Orientalis Major^ flore hitco. It is collected previous to its 

 time of flowering, though the powder is made before the flower-stalk has appeared. 



1 Gmdin. Flora Siberica. Philosophical Transactions. 1753- 



2 O'Ct'ww^//' J Observations. ^ 7'. Short. Op. cil., p. 254. 



