Histoi-y of Animal Plagues. 419 



eyes looked haggard and tearful; a tenacious mucus flowed from 

 the mouth and nostrils ; they lay down and died tranquilly, or 

 in convulsions. These symptoms often ran their course so 

 rapidlv that the animals died without any one having seen 

 them ; they were even ohserved to drop down and perish in the 

 yoke. The cattle and sheep had never looked healthier than 

 in this year, and the best and fattest were the most likely to be 

 first destroyed by the epizooty.^ 



The epizooty described as reigning in Denmark and Sweden 

 in the preceding year, was still prevalent in those countries, and a 

 similar affection had shown itself in Prussia.^ Mention is made 

 of an extraordinary epizooty amongst fowls. Bascome and 

 Rutty notice it as occurring; at Genoa in this year, and Villalba 

 speaks of its appearance in Spain : ' In this year there appeared 

 another epizooty amongst the fowls, and which only affected this 

 species of animal ; it killed very many, and no one was able to 

 prevent its ravages.'^ In the same year it had invaded the 

 South of France, for M. la Berthonye mentions his having made 

 a dissection of two fowls which had died at Toulon in May; 

 the appearances presented by these he enumerates as follows : 

 ' The examination of the first showed all the parts, internal and 

 external, in a natural and healthy state, with the exception of 

 the liver, which was adherent; but in exposing the whole length 

 of the canal which conducts the food from the crop to the giz- 

 zard, in the second fowl, I perceived that the extremity of the 

 latter organ was humid, livid, and corrupted to the extent of a 

 finger's width ; in detaching this substance from each side, it 

 exuded a purulent and abundant matter, full of white globules, 

 which left no doubt as to the presence of a fully-formed abscess. 

 On again inspecting the first fowl, which had not been opened 

 in the same manner as the second, the same phenomena were 

 presented, and pus globules were observed. I then had no 

 doubt whatever that the disease which harassed this species 

 (jf animal was nothing but an inflammation, terminating in sup- 

 jHiration ; and I imagined I could trace the remote cause to the 

 barley and bran on which the fowls had been fed during this 



* Barbaret. Memoire sur les Maladies Epidemiques des Bestiaux. Paris, 1765. 

 2 Glcditsch. Abliandlung, vol. i. ^ Villalba. Op. cit., vol. ii. p. 219. 



