304 History of Animal Plagues. 



Pestilent'ielles des B^te^ a Comes, published by authority at Paris 

 in 1776, savs^ p. 577 : "^ That the sakitary effects of the precau- 

 tions taken in the Austrian Low Countries had excited the atten- 

 tion of the EngHsh, who bv the same means got rid of the same 

 calamity. They have exactly and scrupulously translated and 

 put into execution the edicts issued from the Juntos of Ghent 

 and Brussels, and their undertaking has been crowned with the 

 most complete success/^ Mons, Vicq d'Azyr was misinformed, 

 for, on the contrary, the late Mr Consul Iivine transmitted the 

 Acts of Parliament, the Orders of Council, and my papers, con- 

 taining every necessary instruction, to a member of the Junto of 

 Ghent, whence they were sent to the Government at Brussels; 

 and it was also a long while before the Juntos could be pre- 

 vailed upon to adopt the system of killing, as they called it. It 

 originated in England in 1747 (?), and it is certain that the Court 

 of Vienna knew fully the obligations which the Austrian Nether- 

 lands had to the British Government, whose orders and regula- 

 tions had been implicitly followed, and which Mons. Vicq 

 d'Azyr says, p. 585, " He had modified and adopted to the rules 

 of French government.^' In Flanders, the infection was also pre- 

 vented from spreading a second time by the same method of pro- 

 ceeding; but, unfortunately, in Holland the cattle continue to be 

 exposed to the same disease. The half-yearly returns which 

 have been regularly sent me contain melancholy accounts of the 

 severe loss of cattle; sometimes the whole have perished; at 

 other times two-thirds have died ; and generally above half fell 

 when the sickness was less violent. In a country where the ill- 

 ness is become general, and constantly raging more or less, 

 where the system of killing cannot now be thought of, and where 

 inoculations have met with so many opponents of all ranks, there 

 can be no other hope of getting rid of the calamity than by ad- 

 mitting into the United Provinces no other cattle than such 

 as are sound, or recovered from the infection. (By the last 

 half-yearly return from Holland, the number of infected cattle 

 was so small, that it was hoped no further return to the States 

 would be necessary.) I shall not trouble you, sir, with the returns 

 from Holland, or the tables of inoculation in Denmark, which 

 would too much increase the length of this letter; but only men- 



