442- History of Animal Plagues. 



ease among potatoes in Scotland, which for many years infested 

 them/ In America, anginas and catarrhs prevailed.^ 



A.D. 1 77 1. The epizooty of rabies, which was noticed as 

 having commenced last year in North America, was this year 

 very prevalent in dogs and foxes, particularly in Boston and 

 its neighbourhood. An epizooty also began in the same local- 

 ity amongst horned cattle, which did not cease until 1785. 

 These events are thus noticed : '' About 25 years past there was 

 an epidemic distemper among dogs causing a great mortality. 

 In 1768 horses were generally affected with a disorder of the 

 head and throat which proved fatal to many, and much injured 

 the serviceableness of those that survived. About the year 1770, 

 there were some instances of the rabies canina ; happily but few 

 dogs were affected, and but few persons were bit; their rage 

 principally fell upon swine. In 1771, a mortal distemper pre- 

 vailed among foxes, and greatly reduced their numbers; about 

 this time, or not long after, a distemper appeared among neat 

 cattle, which destroyed manv, and has continued to this day. 

 The distempers that befell these several kinds of animals were 

 said not to have been known in the country before, more espe- 

 cially that which has affected neat cattle, and which has gen- 

 erally been considered as a new disease. It is commonly called 

 the horn-distemper, and cows are more especially subject to it; 

 oxen but seldom; bulls are said to be exempt from it, also steers 

 and heifers under three years of age. It is a disease that affects 

 the internal substance of the horn, commonly called the pith, 

 insensibly wastes it, and leaves the horn hollow. The pith is a 

 spongy bone, whose cells are filled with an unctuous matter; it 

 is furnished with a great number of small blood-vessels, is over- 

 spread with a thin membrane, and appears to be united by 

 suture to the bones of the head, and is projected to a point. 

 This spongy bone, in the horn-distemper, is sometimes partly, 

 and sometimes entirely, wasted. The horn loses its natural heat, 

 and a degree of coldness is evident upon handling it; when it is 

 only in one horn (which is often the case) a manifest difference 

 between the one and the other will be perceived, and in all cases 



1 T. Forster. Op. cit., p. 169. 



