History of Animal Plagues. 473 



but its contagious qualities were never lost at any time. All the 

 animals which had not been cured, and which stood in the same 

 stable, contracted the infection. De Berg witnessed a thousand 

 examples of this truth, and never met with anything to the con- 

 trary. In general, nine-tenths of those attacked died ; at other 

 times three-fourths, or two-thirds, or one-half the animals of a 

 village or canton perished. 



It always happened that if a portion escaped by recovery, 

 their deliverance was ascribed to the remedies administered. This 

 pretended success was announced in the public papers and in 

 the journals ; but the deceit was soon discovered, for the in- 

 ventors of these panaccae, on being called upon to employ their 

 medicines in another village in the neighbourhood, signally failed; 

 and perhaps all the animals seized with the malady perished 

 except a twentieth or thirtieth part. It was remarked, that its 

 disastrous effects were far greater in districts or villages which lay 

 low, or were near marshy localities, than in those which ivere situ- 

 ated on high or dry ground. It was rare for more than a moiety of 

 those aflTected to be saved ; it was much rarer for the whole of the 

 cattle of a stable to perish, or for less than a fifth or a tenth part 

 to escape. Two-thirds of the number sometimes recovered. All 

 these were exempted from a second attack; if there existed ex- 

 amples to the contrary, which have been duly confirmed, then they 

 were even more rare than those of the small-pox in man having 

 been contracted a second time. An animal which had recovered 

 could be sold for twice the amount of one which had not 

 had the malady. It was a disease most difficult to arrest in 

 communes ; it extended with great rapidity in the cantons 

 where cattle were at pasture when it broke out. Unless animals 

 were kept in closely-confined and isolated stables, uidely apart 

 from each other, it was probable that in two or three months the 

 contagion would spread from one extremity of Europe to the 

 other. It gained, step by step, the prairies covered with cattle ; 

 it followed the direction of the great roads, and that of the winds; 

 it attacked the cow-sheds of proprietors in districts the most 

 distant from each other, but who were allied by ties of relationship; 

 hence it was said that the disease jumped lioui one place to an- 

 other, just because these family connections were not taken into 



