History of Animal Plagues. 397 



among horses had shown itself, and which in the Dorpat district 

 alone had destroyed 1500 horses in the course of eleven weeks. 

 After rain had fallen the malady ceased. What is more, about 

 the beginning of August the cattle there began to sufi'er, and 

 soon after we had tidings from the town of Riga, and from the 

 district of Kirchholm, that a cattle plague had broken out there, 

 but it differed from that of 1748/ ^ 



Finland was also subjected to the ravages of a similar malady, 

 though the reporter confounds the disease with the Cattle Plague ; 

 but the description of the symptoms, as well as the fact that many 

 men were infected by the sick animals, shows this opinion to be 

 erroneous. 'There died, apparently from the intolerable heat of 

 the weather and from the dry summer, an incredible number of 

 horses, and some cattle, especially around Tawastehuus, as also 

 in the parishes of Janacala, Wana, Huttula, and Sekmake, where 

 many hundred head perished in each. Here around Abo it was 

 most severe amongst the cattle, particularly in the parishes of 

 Vehmo and Virmo. The greater the drought and heat of the 

 summer, so the more deadly was the malady. If the cattle were 

 deprived of water in the fields where there was no shelter, and 

 exposed to the heat of the sun, or kept on marshy pastures where 

 the water was corrupted, and where their food was covered with 

 mud or slime, then the plague was all the more dangerous. 

 When healthy cattle were put on pasture where others had died 

 and lay exposed or were improperly buried, they became stricken. 

 It has been observed, that on those pastures which for some parts 

 of the year are submerged, and have afterwards been dried up, the 

 herbage is covered with mud ; this is very obnoxious to health, 

 and causes dysentery in the animals eating it. It is also well 

 known what a stench meadow-caterpillars {grasrmipen) cause, and 

 they were very common here; besides, it is a matter of observa- 

 tion that myriads of vermin take up their abode in marshes and 

 quagmires, which in long-continued drought are dried up and 

 leave all these creatures to rot on their surface, and to taint the 

 air as much as the stagnant water does. In addition to all this, 

 such creatures as aphides and catcrj^illars, which so increase 



' Fischer. Op. cit., p. 447. 



