History of Animal Plagues. 343 



on the justest ground of trial and observation, as well as of speculative 

 reasons, that a considerable number of the cattle, which would die of 

 the murrain if left to the natural course of the disease, would be saved. 

 It is not to be nnagined, nevertheless, with the least shadow of reason, 

 that there is any method of cure which would avail in every instance, 

 the very weak or disordered habit of part of the beasts subjecting them 

 to the violence of the distemper in a degree beyond the power of those 

 practicable means that can support their strength. But if such a num- 

 ber be preserved from destruction as overbalances, on the whole, in any 

 material proportion,^ the expense of the treatment of the cattle by the 

 method proposed, the proprietors will find an adequate inducement to 

 put it in practice, and the public will in sev^eral ditferent manners 

 reap great advantage from it if extensively adopted. 



* I have, for more than one reason, omitted, at present, the giving 

 formal prescription for the medicines or rules for the regimen, as there 

 will be a more proper season for it if the occasion for the practice of 

 them should ever again occur in our country. The knowledge of the 

 symptoms and appearances by which the disease may be distinguished 

 are alone all that is necessary to be generally taught now, but that 

 knowledge certainly ought to be diffused as universally as possible. The 

 explaining at this time a method of medicinal treatment, in such a way 



^ On a modern computation, the treatment of a beast conformably to the means 

 of cure above recommended would not, on an average, cost the owners of cattle 

 above eight shilHngs in the course of the disease. So that if, according to 

 the principles above premised, it were necessary to practise it on four beasts in 

 order to save one, the actual expense incurred for each beast so saved would 

 not amount to above thirty-two shillings, which is not more than one-third of 

 the price of neat cattle, taken one with another, at a lime when the disease pre- 

 vails. But the advantage to the public would be in much greater proportion 

 than merely this gain, from the effect the saving one-half the beasts that otherwise 

 would die would have in keeping up the national stock, and preventing the scarcity 

 from becoming greater, the mischiefs of which, when it goes beyond a certain de- 

 gree, augments in much larger than an equal proportion to the scarcity itself To 

 the proprietors of cattle, moreover, the advantage of every beast so saved would be 

 far beyond the common price of one in other respects equal. For after the disease 

 has had some duration in any place the value of the cattle wliich have had it rises 

 very considerably on account of their future security from tin- infection. In tlie 

 latter part of the time when it last raged here a cow, which could be well certified 

 to have had it, was deemed to be worth sixteen pounds, near London, and the 

 same holds good now, as to the price of such a cow in Holland. Tliis circumstance 

 not only yields an additional motive to the proprietors of cattle to pursue an effica- 

 cious method of cure, but it is pregnant with great advantages to the community, 

 as the recovered cows must here, where a fresh supply cannot be had by land, as 

 on the Continent, make the principal dependance for breeding to keep up the stock 

 and for obtaining milk. 



