296 History of Animal Plagues. 



And thisj if I am not much deceived, the present mitigation of 

 the distemper's original severity has made much more feasible 

 than it was some time ago. (As great havoc as the distemper 

 makes at present, it is very certain that many more cattle have 

 for this last year and a half recovered than did from its first 

 breaking out to that time. And this is true both of those treated 

 medically, and of those which are not. This difference of event 

 in regard to the latter, cannot be denied to proceed from a dif- 

 ferent degree of violence in the distemper; and I think the same 

 conclusion may be justly drawn in respect of the former, since 

 no method of treatment for some time after its first appearance 

 — when all kinds were tried — was able to produce the same 

 event.) The cure consisted in bleedings every day for three, four, 

 or five days, with drenches of water gruel, and afterwards warm 

 mashes of bran and water gruel alternately until nearly quite well, 

 when dry food was to be allowed in very small quantity. The 

 animal was to be kept in a warm house with plenty of straw to 



lie on If the beast breaks out in blotches about the fifth or 



seventh day, its recovery may be depended on; but a great many 

 do also recover which have no such critical eruptions. . . . There 

 may undoubtedly be some occasions where it may be useful, and 

 even necessary, to add some medicines; and whoever has a mind 

 to use them properly may find them very judiciously adapted to 

 the chief indications of cure in a late pamphlet styled An Essay 

 to fix the Judgment of the Public on the Nature and Cure of the 

 Distemper now raging among the Horned Cattle, cSc, which, so 

 far as concerns the means of cure, is the best which has yet been 

 published on the subject.' 



Another physician, writing in 1751, remarks : ^'Tis observed 

 in experience, that sometimes the particular distemperature of 

 the air infects human bodies only. Again, it shall only infect 

 animals, sometimes of one kind, and sometimes of another ; 

 and of late we have had a very fatal experience of a most raging 

 pestilential fever among our horned cattle, from a peculiar pollu- 

 tion in the air. And what confusion of advice and melancholy 

 destruction have we been witnesses of in the present raging sick- 

 ness among the cattle, except in some few instances where the 

 rational means of cure have prevailed For when the 



