454 History of Animal Plagues. 



fected and those which are not. If this malady was generated 

 spontaneously^ like the ordinary fevers of man^ we would in vain 

 barricade the infected stables^ in vain we would slaughter the 

 cattle of a village, and it would be useless to isolate the moun- 

 tains by barriers and by guards. All these precautions would not 

 keep away a disease which has its origin in the blood itself of the 

 healthiest cattle. 



'This contagion, however, does not spread very far, and it 

 does not infect a column of air for any great distance. If the 

 air were infected — if it was able to carry afar the poison of the 

 disease, the barriers and other precautionary measures of man 

 would be unavailinsr. In this there is the greatest resemblance 

 between the disease of cattle and the plague of man. The 

 monks and nuns of Marseilles were preserved because they kept 

 their convents closed. The air was not, then, the cause of the 

 disease, else the closure of the convents would not have pre- 

 vented the pestilence from entering. The police have often con- 

 fined this disease of cattle to a stable, or a small number of 

 stables, and so prevented others being attacked. 



8. 



'It follows from all this, that, on the one side, the disease arises 

 from infection, and on the other, that there are no hopes of a 

 cure. There only remain, then, those resources which we may 

 employ to prevent infection, and for confining to the smallest 

 limits the loss which might happen when animals are first 

 attacked by this poison. These eflTorts should be directed to pre- 

 vent the infection being communicated from other countries to 

 ours ; or if it should have penetrated, then to stop its spreading 

 from the diseased to the healthy. Above all things, then, we 

 ought to hinder the entrance of cattle from a country where the 

 pneumonia nearly always reigns, sometimes in one district, some- 

 times in another; and these precautions ought to remain in force 

 at all times, and be perpetual in regard to those countries 

 where the police is not strict, and from which the disease might 

 be carried to ours. The danger will be always great if the 

 trade in cattle is carried on without inspection. This precaution 

 is all the more necessary against the countries vvhosc rulers care 



