282 Histoiy of Animal Plagues. 



chins and at their wrists^ while they are among the sick cattle, 

 and put it off before they go to any other business, ... If" the sick 

 beast dies, let it be immediately buried with its hide on, and 

 with or without quicklime, in a pit seven or eight feet deep, and 

 the earth filled in close upon it, that no exhalations may pass 

 from the dead body through the earth into the air of the atmo- 

 sphere. . . . Postscript. — It is a pleasure to tell you, that since 

 I wrote this letter, I have been informed that the mortality 

 among the cattle in Ireland was not propagated by any conta- 

 gion, but was occasioned by the scarcity and badness of their food 

 the last winter, which therefore we may hope will soon cease, as 

 their food is now plentiful and wholesome.^ ... It appears to be 

 very prudent, in regard to the present sicknesses among the 

 cattle in Essex, Scotland, and Ireland, to have researches made 

 (according to the method proposed) in order to find out the 

 nature or quality of the causes that produce them, and the 

 proper remedies. But besides the accounts mentioned, there 

 should be transmitted with them a particular account of the 



1 I am unable to find any particular allusion to the probable introduction of 

 the Cattle Plague into Ireland at this time ; and indeed the existence of 

 the malady in that island appears to have been altogether overlooked by recent 

 investigators. Besides the notice given by Rutty for 1745, in Faulkner's Journal 

 for August 26th, 1746, mention is further made of this epizooty in Ireland. 

 ' A great number of cows have lately been affected with a dry, husky cough 

 and universal tremour, and the urine which they make is generally very pale ; 

 the colour of their eyes is not altered, neither is the breath so offensive, nor their 

 tongue so black, as last year ; some have a violent purging, others very costive, 

 and it has destroyed a vast quantity of cattle.' In the same Journal for 1747, 

 the existence is noticed of ' an epizooty in England among horned cattle ; their 

 removal from one town to another prevented.' Another account I have been 

 able to procure refers to some murrain, which may have been the one under con- 

 sideration, and is to be found in Button's Survey of the County of Clare. He says : 

 'The murrain was a very common and fatal disorder some years since. Like the rot 

 in sheep, it exercised the ingenuity of conjecture and quackery. It was by some 

 imputed to a worm with a very large head, and of very vivid colours, which, it was 

 said, poisoned the water that the cattle drank. By others it was conjectured that 

 some poisonous plant, the seed of which, it was supposed, dropped from the clouds 

 at that particular period, and which most fortunately asses were fond of. On ac- 

 count of this happy propensity they were purchased by many sagacious graziers, 

 and, the murrain ceasing about this period, the asses had all the honour ; and it is 

 still usual to keep two or three of these animals on a farm. The number of cattle 

 killed by this dreadful disease was inmense — many persons lost almost the entire of 

 their stock, and were completely beggared. However the cure of it may have 

 been effected, it has not been known for several years.' P. 79. 



