History of Animal Plagues. 371 



brcathino; was very uneasy, especially about the third day. The 

 diseased beast sighed, and breathed with a noise which could be 

 heard twenty jKiccs off. When the flank was watched, it was 

 found that the respirations were jerking. The sort of vertigo 

 which sometimes caused the animals to run about, and which 

 was observed by Lancisi in 171 1, was also observed by Sauvages. 

 The most constant symptom was the purging, which began 

 between the second and fifth day. It was preceded by straining, 

 and very often the matters were ejected for some distance, and 

 were of adeep green colour with a very bad odour. This odour 

 did not prevent other cattle from seeking and sniffing the faeces 

 of the diseased, and dogs and pigs licked them up when permit- 

 ted. This diarrhoea was, about the fifth or sixth day, mixed 

 with blood, and on the surface looked like thick oil enclosing 

 bubbles of air. This flux generally carried the animals off" in the 

 first week. Entire stables have been depopulated the same day 

 on which the malady has appeared. 



The unfavourable symptoms were: an invincible loathing, 

 a copious discharge from the nostrils, and, above all, the diarrhoea 

 largely mixed with blood, or even simple diarrhoea. The favour- 

 able symptoms were: the disease continuing till the second week; 

 the animal eatinscand drinking; a little, and the skin of the nose 

 peeling off, or the hair of the croup being shed, and pustules in 

 the mouth. If an abscess appeared in the dewlap or on the limbs, 

 it was accompanied by another symptom : the dorsal spine became 

 so sensitive, that a little pressure with the hand would make 

 tlie beast fall on its knees, and if more forcible make it rim 

 away. Emphysematous swellings, very painful and diffuse, but 

 not much elevated, formed at the flanks and thighs; these dis- 

 charged a quantity of air when incised. When these swellings 

 occupied the genital regions the prognosis was unfavourable. 



There was not much derangement noticed in the viscera of 

 those animals which were examined after death, especially if the 

 disease had lasted for three or four days only. There was no- 

 thing carbuncular about them. That which passed for anthrax 

 [vkarioti) was marked by great emi^hvsematous swellings. True 

 anthrax had not manifested itself in a single ox durinfj this 

 epizocity, neither had it been seen for three or four years. The 



