472- History of Animal Plagues. 



same cause. There are no characteristic signs of the malady^ 

 and the author was confident of this; for he had seen animals 

 in an infected stable which only ceased to eat, or appeared to be 

 unwell, for some twenty-four hours, and which recovered in two 

 days, although others in the same place exhibited the malady 

 by the most marked symptoms. All those standing in the same 

 stable were sure to be infected within a month. If cattle of dif- 

 ferent breeds and various ages did not always manifest the same 

 symptoms when attacked, yet each of them showed some un- 

 mistakeable token of the disease. 



The remedial measures which were opposed to the malady, 

 in considering it as an epizooty, were entirely without effect; but 

 the measures which were employed, when viewing the disease 

 as more contagious than the plague of mankind, were at- 

 tended with success, and especially in proportion to the activity, 

 the care, and the vigilance of those who were entrusted with 

 their execution. 



The author believed that the poisonous germs existed in the 

 body of the animal ; that they adhered to the hair of the skin ; that 

 they lurked in the excretions and the exhalations ; and that they 

 could be carried in the air, where, however, if in time they did 

 not find a body susceptible of receiving and nourishing them, 

 they perished. These pestilential vapours attached themselves to 

 spongy substances, to plaster, to cobwebs, or to wool. As a 

 result of this, all the cattle which had not yet been infected or 

 cured contracted the disease if they came in contact with a sick 

 animal, or with bodies impregnated by these vapours. It sufficed 

 that an infected beast remained but an hour, or even a few 

 minutes, in a stable, in order to contaminate all in the place; the 

 disease would manifest itself before a month, even were the cattle 

 driven to a distant pasture. Every animal which had contracted 

 the disease in this way retained its health for fifteen days. It 

 was only after this period that it began to refuse its food, and 

 the plague announced its presence by unequivocal signs. Such 

 an animal might yet, while preserving the appearances of good 

 health, communicate the malady to another, or to many which 

 had not been affected previously. It was not always a mortal 

 disease^ and appeared to lose its dreadfully destructive properties; 



