42 o History of Animal Plagues. 



year; for the great inundations which so troubled the whole 

 kingdom, both before and after the harvest^ had made this 

 aliment not only bad but scarce/ -^ 



In Bohemia in 1763-4, Tarn notices its prevalence/ and Sagar 

 writes of the disease in Moravia in 1764.^ In a journal of those 

 days published in Germany, we learn that the malady was not 

 very prevalent in the north of that country, nor yet in other 

 northern regions. ' In Spain, France, and Italy, for some time 

 past, a disease among the feathered tribes, but especially hens, has 

 caused great destruction and loss. In Cremona alone 5000 have 

 died within two months ; maiiy were opened in order to discover 

 the cause, but nothing was found in the interior of their bodies, 

 except a large quantity of acrid fluid, which arose, it was supposed, 

 from bad nourishment. Among the dogs, also, was a distemper, 

 which sooner or later ended in madness. Hence in Asti, Alex- 

 andria, and other places, all dogs, no matter who their owners 

 were, were slaughtered by the authorities. Nine hundred of 

 these animals were killed in Madrid in one dav.'* 



An epizooty of aphthous fever [ekzema epizoutica) m 



Moravia, is recorded, which attacked cattle and sheep. Doubts 



have, however, been expressed as to the disease being the 



one named. The most exact accounts we have are those of 



Michael Sagar,^ and the malady may have become altered in its 



type from what we are accustomed to see now-a-days, though 



doubtless it is the same disease. The vesicles do not seem to have 



been analogous to those observed in modern times, and this author 



says that the ulcers which succeeded the eruption were pale and 



of a dirty-grey hue, of a very repulsive aspect, and sprinkled over 



with red points ; that their margins were hard, that they extended 



rapidly and deeply; and also that they secreted a sanious humour 



which was fetid, acrid, and corrosive, and possessed contagious 



properties to a very high degree. He adds, that from the 



time desquamation took place the animals began to be lame, 



and that this lameness was caused by tumours of a greater or 



less size developed all at once, and full of ripe pus, which showed 



^ Richard de Hautesierck. Recueil d'Observations, vol. i. p. 169. 



- Tarn. Horn-, Schaf-, Pferde-, und Federvieh-Arzneikunst, p. 543. 



2 Sagar. Op. cit. * Hannoverisches ]\Iagazin. 1764. 



^ M. Sagar. Medic. Libellus de Aplithis recorinis. Vienna. 1765. 



