Histoiy of Animal Plagues. 493 



mixed up in the same pasture with those of Roussan. The 20th 

 of July saw eight cows affected at Roussan. The parishes of 

 Montigni and Preaux soon experienced the attacks of this con- 

 tagious disease. Nampont-Saint-Firmin was afterwards attacked, 

 and the disease extended to Nampont-Saint-Martin on the 6th 

 of August ; at the end of this month Noyelles has been infected? 

 owing to a certain person pasturing his cows in the communal 

 meadows of Nampont-Saint-Firmin. Vron and Avennes were 

 the last villages into which the epizooty was allowed to penetrate. 

 It is most noticeable that the progress of the disease has been in 

 direct relation to the communications, and to the imprudences 

 without number which took place ; the marsh of Roussan, which 

 is the most unhealthy, was the birthplace of the epizooty, and 

 the contagion, which had arisen in a low and damp situation, 

 was propagated by communication, and in this way penetrated 

 to the parishes of Vron and Avennes, which are more elevated, 

 more salubrious, and in a position which renders them less sub- 

 ject to diseases of every kind. 



'The cattle in general coughed a long time before being ill ; 

 the cough has continued in some, but in others it has been but 

 rarely heard. The, first symptom was a grinding of the teeth with 

 a considerable noise; soon the milk became lessened in quantity, 

 or at other times was suddenly suppressed, the udder becoming 

 flaccid and less pendant; the belly appeared drawn up; the 

 hair of the back became rough and erect; the eye began to in- 

 flame; in pinching the animal about the throat it winced, and 

 when pressure was made on the xiphoid cartilage of the sternum 

 the back was raised like that of a camel, — a symptom, however, 

 on which much reliance cannot be placed, because it is often 

 observed in healthy animals ; the ears and the horns were some- 

 times hot, sometimes cold; the pulse was at this time full, a 

 little hard, and rather slow than (juickened. The animal did 

 not appear any more dull than usual; and often, even after the 

 suppression of the milk, the appetite was greater than before; in 

 a short time afterwards the rumination became unfrcquent, and 

 at last ceased altogether. These incidents belonged to the first 



stage. 



In the second, the milk had disappeared, and the cattle re- 



