436 History of Animal Plagues. 



blood and very fetid, and causing the death of the animal in 

 from four to five days/ ^ 



The Cattle Plague was yet raging with renewed violence 

 in Holland/ in Belgium, and the North of France. Some of the 

 best authorities believed it had reappeared in Holland, and that 

 its origin could be traced to the commerce in fresh hides which 

 existed between that country and Hungary and Dalmatia. In 

 Holland alone, it was computed that 600,000 head of cattle 

 had perished. It is not improbable that the disease just de- 

 scribed by Bourgelat and Bottani was this fearful malady. In 

 1771, it was exceedingly fatal in Brabant; from thence it ad- 

 vanced to Flanders, and thence to Picardy, Artois, Boulonnais, 

 and Laonnais. The physician Dufot, in an excellent treatise,^ tells 

 us how it spread from infected districts, and penetrated the last- 

 named province. ' This epizootic disease,' he says, ' is conta- 

 gious in the strictest sense of the term. A cow brought from 

 Flanders communicated the disorder to other cows. The shep- 

 herds who, in these cantons, had been imprudent enough to 

 enter those villages where the disease was prevailing in all its 

 fury, carried it back to their own. The pestilential miasms at- 

 tach themselves to everything solid and palpable, and the mere 

 contact of these corpuscles gives rise to and perpetuates the 

 malady.' It was so disastrous in its effects that the French Go- 

 vernment was obliged to give it their attention, and to solicit 

 the framing of precautionary measures by the Alfort College. 

 The symptoms enumerated give no new features to the malady 

 already so well known. Dufot observes that sometimes tumours 

 appeared under the skin ; these sensibly augmented in size. He 



^ Bottani. Op. cit., vol. vii. p. 78. 



- P. Camper. Brief aan den Hooggel. Utrecht, 1770. Leseen over de 

 Veepest. Vorles. iiber das heutige herumgeliende Viehsterben, aus dem Holland. 

 Von I. E. Lange. Copenhagen, 1771. Much that is valuable and interesting will 

 be found in the following works, published in Holland during the previous five 

 years : — Alta. Verhandelingen, &c., 1765. Noodige raadgevingen aan over- 

 heden en ingezetenen, &c., 1769. Forsten. Kort onderricht voor den Veehouder, 

 1767. Van Doevcj-eii. Raadgevingen om de inentinge der Ziekte van't Rundvee, 

 &c., 1769. Vink. Lessen over de herkaauwing der Rundern en de tans 

 woedende Veeziekte, 1 769. 



^ Dr Dufot. Memoire sur la Maladie Epizootique du Pays Laonnois. Laon, 

 1771. 



