41 6 History of Animal Plagues. 



tongue and the soft palate was black, livid^ and gangrenous, 

 and covered with ulcers which had destroyed and gnawed away 

 the base of the tongue. On a section being made across the 

 muscles of this part, they were found to be pale, bloodless, and 

 sphacelous ; the pituitary membrane, thicker than in ordinary 

 circumstances, was black, studded with ulcers, and the fluid with 

 which it was gorged resembled very thick ink rather than blood. 

 There was caries of the ethmoid bones and the cartila2;es of the 

 nose, the enveloping membrane of which was also destroyed.' 

 The external tumefaction was not always confined to the imme- 

 diate region of the throat. ' Often it extended to all the in- 

 termaxillary glands, the neck, and the bronchi ae, forming con- 

 siderable external tumours, there were some instances 



in which the throat was not in so diseased a state, but tumours 

 appeared in an indistinct form in every part of the body. In 

 some dead animals they were in the omentum, in others in some 

 portion of the intestines; in others, again, the spleen was 

 greatly engorged ; in a fourth class neither liver nor lungs 

 were in their natural condition, but their margins were swoll- 

 en, black, turgid, inelastic, and verging on gangrene. In all, 

 the digestive apparatus was in that depraved state which is usual 

 in serious diseases.^ Further on, in describing the alterations in 

 the parts of the throat affected, — their red, brown, and sometimes 

 black colour, and their softness, he says that ' they were the 

 consequences of a violent inflammation, neither phlegmonous nor 

 erysipelatous, which excites less fever and pain than these, — an 

 inflammation of a heavy dull kind arising from an engorge- 

 ment produced by the stupor of the parts.^^ 



The principal causes of the disease were supposed to be the 

 excessive heat of the weather, bad herbage, and more particularly 

 the extremely unhealthy stagnant water the animals were com- 

 pelled to drink. The malady was conjectured, and perhapsjustly, 

 to be contagious ; so that every care was taken to prevent com- 

 munication between the healthy and the suffering animals, 

 and disinfection was sedulously resorted to wherever the epizooty 

 appeared. 



A.D. 1763. The seasons of this year were very dissimilar in 

 ' Notes au Memoire de Barberet. 



1 



