322 History of Animal Plagues. 



to the manner of administration, whence we have very few certain in- 

 stances of tlieir success. The far greater part of these medicines, like 

 those used for the prevention of the disease, have been taken up on the 

 authority of the ancients and the earher writers, and consist ot a jum- 

 bled variety of those medicaments which are deemed antidotes of 

 poisons or alexipharmics. Under this class have been given theriaca, 

 mithridate, diascordium, opium, camphor, balsams, frankincense, myrrh, 

 juniper berries, camomile flowers, marigold flowers, feverfew, rue, sage, 

 fenugreek, madder roots, grass roots, horse-radish, bay leaves, mustard 

 seed, snake root, contrayerva root, turmeric, savin, moth maslein, 

 spearmint, calamus, aromaticus, garlic, onions, leeks, testaceous powders, 

 sulphur, vinegar stalks, honey, raisins, figs, blood of a tortoise, and eggs. 

 Some present physicians on more modern, but perhaps not more just 

 notions, have exhibited to the beasts several of the above and other 

 simples, under the name of antiseptics, in another intention ; it is that 

 of resisting putrefaction, in which they principally place the cause of 

 this disease.^ The chief of the remedies of this class they have adopted 



^ The antiseptic class of medicines has not much more claim of propriety and 

 efficacy in the cure of the murrain than that of the antidotes and alexipharmics. 

 Though a putrescent state of the fluids be the consequence of this disease in the 

 second stage, when the effects are violent, yet it does not seem to have any concern 

 in the cause, nor from any marks even to come on in the first stage. The effectual 

 method, therefore, of doing somewhat that may resist the putrefaction is to miti- 

 gate the violence of the disease, which can only be effected, as far as hitherto 

 V appears, by keeping up the natural strength of the beasts, through the use of an in- 

 vigorative regimen. The action of those remedies called antiseptics may be there- 

 fore well doubted, as we shall have occasion to take notice more particularly below, 

 /with respect to their immediate effects in that intention in any febrile cases, and 

 I more especially in the murrain. Notwithstanding they check putrefaction in inani- 

 ; mate animal substances, yet, in living subjects, being taken into the intestines, their 

 I nature is changed by the digestive operation, and they do not pass into the habit 

 with the same qualities, but as a part of the chyle in which such qualities cannot 

 exist. Those of them that contain the astringent gums which have the property of 

 \ tanning, such as are found in the Peruvian bark, &c., may promote this intention 

 ' indeed secondarily by invigorating the solids, accelerating, consequently, the mo- 

 tion of the fluids, and thence aiding the natural ferments, which are the cause why 

 putrefaction does not take place in the juices of the living animals. But the acid 

 kinds of the antiseptic medicines have even the conti-ary effects in febrile cases. 

 For, diminishing the irritability, they lower the vis vita:, and they prevent digestion 

 by checking that particular ferment by which it is performed. Whence, in both 

 ways, they lessen the animal strength, and of course conduce to the putrescence of 

 the humours. These antiseptic remedies, moreover, can have no effect on the habit 

 in that stage of the disease where the putrescence actually takes place, because 

 the digestion is then totally lost, as we shall see below, and the medicines, when 

 taken, either remain in the stomachs of the beasts, or pass off in the colliquative 

 purging. . It is thence we may account for the greater mortality of beasts so treated. 



