History of Aninial Plagues. 385 



of the month beijan to abate. It rao;ed in Denmark at the 

 same time, but it did not reach our horses in Dubhn till its de- 

 chne in England at the time before-mentioned, havinn; probably 

 been imported, and was nearly of the same duration here as in 

 England; however, it afl'ected the horses in Munster and Ulster 

 almost, if not quite, as soon as in Dublin, and there was scarce 

 an instance of a horse in town or country but had it.' It seized 

 the animals 'like a violent cold, with heaviness, loss of appetite, 

 cough, and laborious breathing, and then a profuse running at 

 the nose and mouth of a digested, or thick, yellow, greenish 

 matter, upon which they grew better. In England, as well as 

 here, it did not prove very mortal, though some died of it. The 

 death of our horses in the city was imputed rather to the use of 

 medicines and too high a diet, than to any malignity in the dis- 

 ease ; for it was observable that very few died in the country, 

 and, particularly, none that were kept at grass. It vanished 

 about the middle of January, 1751.'^ 



Osmer,^ who wrote a treatise on the diseases of the horse 

 shortly after this period, alludes to the epizooty of 1750. 'Va- 

 rious were the syn)ptoms, and different the degrees of illness 

 amongst different horses. Some had a discharge of matter from 

 their eves, nose, and mouth; others had none; but in all there 

 were great tokens of inflammation, attended with a fever and a 

 violent cough. . . . Most of those horses which had a plentiful 

 discharge of matter from the nose, &c., lived ; and where such 

 discharges did not happen, nor a critical abscess fall on some 

 part, most of them in London died. . . , On many of these I 

 made several incisions in the skin, on various parts of the body ; 

 and wherever an incision was made, I found in all of them 

 a quantity of extravasated serum lodged between the skin and 

 the membranes. . . . Since the year 1750, this disease has visited 

 by turns each shed and stable, has fallen on horses of all ages at 

 various seasons of the year, and in different shapes; wherever it 

 comes I believe none escape ; and when it falls on sucking foals, 

 they are generally stunted and spoiled.' 



' Kulty. Op. cit. 

 * A Treatise on the Diseases and Lameness of Horses, 3rd edit. London, 

 1766. 



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