424 History of Animal Plagues. 



or ten days. These cattle^ generally speaking — some sooner, 

 some later — after they have been lame^ get bad mouths. Saliva 

 flows in large quantities^ and when the disease assumes a serious 

 aspect^ it chokes them, or makes them appear as if they had 

 something in their throats. When one draws the cow^s tongue 

 through the hand, the skin peels off, and whenever the mouth is 

 affected the animal gives bad milk; the first attempts at milking 

 show the milk to be of a reddish or purulent hue, but after 

 this it comes away in its usual colour; this milk has been given 

 to swine, and they have died from it. To-day I have been in- 

 formed that such milk was given to a dog yesterday, and now it 

 is dead. The cows suffered most, although the larger number 

 attacked were oxen. The sheep also w^ere affected, and though 

 none of them succumbed, yet they were very sick,' ^ In Switzer- 

 land, pneumonia was prevalent in some districts.^ 



A.D. 1765. The winter of this year was cold, and the summer 

 damp. In the Tyrol, gangrenous inflammation of the lungs 

 affected cattle.^ In Moravia, great numbers of sheep died from 

 an epizooty which, from the symptoms described by Sagar,* may 

 have either been rot or a malignant catarrh (Heusinger). The 

 Cattle Plague was imported from Turkey to Bruck, on the river 

 I^eitha, Hungary, in the month of February, and it remained there 

 until the autumn ; from thence, according to Koczian, it was car- 

 ried to Upper and Lower Saxony.^ Might not the ovine disease 

 described by Sagar be the Rinderpest, transmitted from the cattle ? 



In India an earthquake was felt along the banks of the 

 Ganges, and much sickness prevailed in that country. Animals 

 shared in these troubles, especially in Madras. ' James Anderson 

 says that, in 1765, he observed twelve days in one season and 

 fourteen days in the other, when the heat and vitiated state of 

 the atmosphere was such that sometimes the men, without any 

 previous illness, fell down dead at roll calling. Various birds of 

 the forest took shelter in tents, and drank water when offered to 

 them, as if they had been domesticated. A hare came into the 



^ Friinkische Sammlung, p. 549. - Tnnupy. Glamer Chronicle, p. 647. 



3 Bottani. Op. cit., vol. vii. p. 72. * Sagar. De Morb. Singul. Ovium. 



^ Kockzian. Prlif. d. urs. die Horn viehseuche. Vienna, 1769. Paulet. Op. 

 cit., vol. i. p. 295. 



