462 Histoiy of Animal Plagues. 



and the curious ways in which the poison could be carried about 

 were often reported. For example, at Morcourt, a village near 

 Paris, the dog of a labourer followed some coachmen who were 

 driving their carriages to the village of Fonsomme, In passing 

 by the farms of Courcelles, where nearly all the cattle had 

 perished, but had not been deep enough buried, this dog stopped 

 when he perceived the smell of their flesh, scraped the earth 

 away, made a repast off them, and then returned to his master. 

 Pressed by thirst, he drank some gruel intended for calves, and 

 then went to sleep on the dungheap. Some days afterwards the 

 calves became ill and died. The contagion was communicated 

 to the cows, who shared the same fate, and the malady soon 

 spread over the whole of the village. Only one farm, belonging 

 to a labourer, and containing twelve cows, escaped; but this in- 

 dividual took every precaution to keep away man and beast 

 from his stables, and did not allow his cows to leave the 

 premises.^ 



Paulet says : Hf we examine all the symptoms enumerated by 

 the various authors, and compare them with those reported for 

 the epizooty of 17 14 and 1745, there can be no difficulty in 

 establishino; their identity, even with their variations. The 

 lachrymation, salivation, and nasal discharge; the prostration, 

 stupor, dulness, refusal of food, and apathy ; in some cases an 

 eruption on the skin, in others none at all, as Lancisi and Cour- 

 tivron remarked ; in the majority, a cough preceding all the 

 other symptoms; emphysematous tumours appearing in large 

 number towards the termination of the disease ; a perceptible 

 alteration in the dejections, which were sometimes liquid, and 

 nearly at all times sanguinolent and fetid; in all, without 

 exception, a hard and dry mass of aliment in the stomachs^ par- 

 ticularly the third compartment; lastly, the same course in com- 

 munication, the same violence in the symptoms, the same periods, 

 the same phenomena in its progress, and the same difficulty in 



1 Besides M. Raulin, whose Memoirs are only to be found in various journals, 

 the writers who have best described the epizooty at this time are : M. Dufot. Me- 

 moire pour preserver les Betes a Cornes de la Maladie Epizootique, &c. Soissons, 

 1773. The Memoire du Sieur Maillard sur la Maladie Epizootique, &c. Amiens, 

 1773. Nocq. Observations sur la Maladie Epizootique que regne dans plusieurs 

 Paroisses de I'Election de Saint-Quentin. St Quentin, 1773. 



