4^6 History of Animal Plagues. 



horses ; one a violent swelling of the legs and eyes, the other a 

 cough with which horses were taken this clay, and, what is very 



remarkable, scarce either a day before or after In the year 



1767, a dry cough became prevalent in Essex among horses, about 

 Allhallowtide, which continued through great part of November, 

 and then subsided. In the neighbourhood of Walthamstow very 

 few horses escaped it/ ^ 



Mumsen says: 'When I was in England, in 1767, there 

 raged a severe winter with a cold, dry, north-east wind until late 

 in May. Then there came a disease in dogs and horses, such as 

 is observed often to precede deadly human plagues ; it was called 

 the " horse cold '^ {pferde-sduvupfen). It did also visit mankind 

 without inducing any very serious consequences.'^ The London 

 Evening Post notices this outbreak : ' There is scarcely a stable 

 in London in which there is not a horse suffering from inflam- 

 matory catarrh. This disease could not be so general if there 

 was not some special vapour in the air to produce it.' ^ 



The Annual Register (p. 151) for this year also remarks: 

 'This autumn has been fatal to the horses in America, as well as 

 England and Holland. The distemper there has been attended 

 with fatal effects ; in the province of New Jersey, it has carried 

 off" almost all their young horses and colts ; and in New England 

 the havoc it has made is very ruinous.' 'Diseases amona: horses 

 were also very prevalent in New England and New Jersey.' * 



The distemper in dogs was so violent in Louisiana, that the 

 greater part of them died.^ 



In Hanover, there was a great mortality amongst the geese." 



In France, the lower animals seem to have suffered equally 

 with mankind. Menuret, of Montpellier, writing of this year 

 says: 'The mortality which has manifested itself amongst dif- 

 ferent kinds of animals seems to merit a place in our observa- 

 tions, and ought to arrest our attention in many respects ; but 

 chiefly because of its relation to the constitution of the seasons, 

 and also because it is a phenomenon which may some day assist, 



' T. Forster. Op. cit., pp. 6, 168. 



^ Mumsen. Kurze Nachricht von der Epid. Schnupfenkrankeit. 



3 The Evening Post, Nov. 10, 1767. ^ Webster. Op. cit., vol. i. p.417. 



^ Ulloa. Noticias Americanas. ^ Hannov. Magazin, 1767. 



