History of Animal Plagues. 461 



Haller as existing in Switzerland^ was in all probability the con- 

 tagious pleuro-pneunionia, to whose ravages at the present time 

 we are so paint'ullv accustomed. Nevertheless, the existence of 

 this malady, concurrently with the Cattle Plague in different 

 countries, has been remarked on several occasions, and has not 

 unfrequently given rise to pathological mistakes of a serious 

 kind. It is also worthy of notice that Switzerland, owino; 

 greatly, no doubt, to its physical configuration and geographical 

 position, as well as to the intelligence of its people, has been 

 largely exempted from the desolating visitations of the Cattle 

 Plague, which was at this time thinning the herds of Flanders, 

 Picardv, Soissonnais, and Champagne. Hainault was the first to 

 experience its ravages. It appeared at La Grosier, a village in the 

 neighbourhood of Landrecy, in the domain of Bouchain. It de- 

 vastated a part of Flanders, particularly about Lille, and soon all 

 the generalities of Soissons and Amiens participated in the de- 

 struction ; more particularly were its dreadful effects remarked on 

 the banks of the river Oise. It appears that in Hainault, as well 

 as in Picardy, there were many vague conjectures as to what had 

 caused the malady ; but the prevailing opinion was that it had 

 been brought bv a sick cow which had come from the Low Coun- 

 tries, where a similar malady was then raging. According to 

 M. Dufot, this was the way in which it had been conveyed 

 to Soissons. In these provinces, it offered the same varieties, 

 and the same phenomena as the epizooty of 1745 did in differ- 

 ent parts of Europe, with some few exceptions. 



The different authors who wrote on the Cattle Plague of 

 this year describe its symptoms and spread very accurately. 

 In Hainault, where it was observed by M. Raulin, it was 

 remarked that the skin eruption was more frequent than else- 

 where. 'The morbid matter of the disease is sometimes thrown 

 out on the skin, in the form of inflammatory pustules {houtons). 

 This eruption appears from the fifth to the seventh day, and 

 particularly about the ears, the neck, the udder, and the inner 

 sides of the thighs: that is to say, on those parts of the skin 

 where there is least resistance, and where its texture is thin- 

 nest.' 



The most striking proofs of its contagiousness were afforded. 



