History of Animal Plagues. 409 



mentj the malady may have been mistaken for rabies, as Mr .Tenner 

 notices ; and If such be admitted, then it is most Hkely that this 

 distemper was in London as early as 1760, which would show 

 that it extended from west to east; for according to Layard, 

 'in the year 1759 and 1760, madness raged among dogs in 

 London and its neighbourhood, in consequence of the mild 

 winter and early spring.' ^ 



It appears to have reached Ireland at a later period, as 

 Dr Rutty in 1764 notices this plague among the dogs at Done- 

 raile, County Cork. 'The symptoms are a great discharge 

 of a gleety humour from the nose and eyes; a difficulty of 

 breathing; a violent beating of the heart, also convulsions, and 

 great weakness in the back and hind legs. It is infectious, and 

 seems to resemble the late murrain among; the black cattle in 

 England.' - The disease appears also to have manifested itself 

 near Dublin. ' Several dogs in and about the city and county 

 of Dublin have been seized with the disorder, which proved fatal 

 to many of them.' ^ 



And in America, about the year 1760, a disease was observed 

 in dogs. 'About twenty-five years past an epidemic distemper 

 prevailed among dogs, and occasioned a great mortality.'* In 

 1763 it broke out at Boulonnais, in France, in consequence, it 

 was said, of its having been carried from England ; and towards 

 the end of the year it had shown itself in the royal kennels at 

 Versailles^ and, indeed, over the whole of France, where it con- 

 tinued during the three following years. Desmars^ witnessed its 

 effects at Boulogne, and described its symptoms; but the veter- 

 inarians 'who investigated the nature of the eplzouty in the royal 

 kennels at Yanville, in France, give us a much better account 

 of it. 'At the end of the year 1763, and during 1764, there 

 appeared in France and the neighbouring countries, an epidemic 

 disease affecting every variety of the dog species. It had begun 

 in England. Two maladies, or two forms of the one disease, 



> Layard. An Essay on the IJitc of a Mad Dog. London, 1763. 

 "^ Letter from Surgeon Wetlierall to.Dr Rutty in the ' Repository.' 

 ^ Letter from Dr James to Dr Rutty, also in the ' Repository.' 

 * Memoirs of the American Academy of Sciences, vol. i. p. 529. 

 ' Dcsinars. Lettre sur la Mortahte de Chiens en 1763. Epidemiques d'llip- 

 pocratc, p. 316. 



