43° History of Animal Plagues. 



tongue and mouth, loud rales in the air-passages, the breath 

 becoming more fetid — all indicated the approach of death; their 

 absence 2;ave tokens of a favourable recovery. An autopsy revealed 

 congestion, lividity, 'and ecchymosis of the lungs, with abscesses 

 and gangrenous spots on their surface, and flakes of gelatinous 

 matter of various colours. In the texture of the lungs were 

 found purulent infiltrations, which broke up the structure of the 

 lobes. These organs adhered to the pleurae, which often looked 

 thickened, inflamed, suppurating, or gangrenous. Considerable 

 effusions of reddish, putrid, foamy fluid were found in the thorax, 

 and sometimes pus, &c. It was thought that the origin of the 

 epizocity was due to variations in the atmosphere, cold and 

 heavy rains, the sudden transition from hot stables to the 

 cold air, or exposure to these rains. It was termed an acute in- 

 flammatory fever, or false malignant peripneumonia. 'This dis- 

 ease,' it is added,' though annual and familiar in our climate — often 

 even epizootic — is scarcely believed to be contagious; prudence, 

 Tievertheless, should make us act as if it were. The ventilation of 

 the stables should be well attended to ; sudden removal from heat 

 to cold should be avoided, and the sick animals ought to be kept 

 in an equable temperature, and have only tepid gruel to drink. '^ 

 The symptoms were supposed to indicate a gangrenous in- 

 flammation of the lungs. The Veterinary School at Alfort was 

 consulted, and some of its pupils were despatched to the districts 

 where the disease was most deadly. The measures they pro- 

 posed had the happiest results, for whereas, before the arrival of 

 these men, the animals were dying in crowds, they were now 

 able to save 140 out of 160. 



Froai the autumn of this year till the end of the year 

 1 78 1, the Cattle Plague ravaged Holland and Ostfriesland most 

 cruelly.''^ We read the following facts relative to 1769, in 

 the Gazette de France for August 24th, 1770. 'During the 



1 M. Boiirgdaf. Notes au Memoire de M. Barberet. Pajild. Op. cit., vol. 

 i. p. 407. Lafosse (Traite de Pathologic Veterinaire, vol. iii. p. 6l6) positively 

 asserts that tliis ' murie ' was the bovine contagious pleuro-pneumonia ; but surely 

 he must be mistaken. Hoses, as well as cattle, were attacked, and the proportion 

 of recoveries by medical treatment in this epizooty is never reached in the deadly 

 lung disease of our days. 



"^ Weiss. Von der Viehseuche, p. 119. 



