5oS History of Animal Plagues. 



Chartres, from this year until 1784, Barrier witnessed ' distemper' 

 in dogs prevailing as an epizocity. There was also an epizooty 

 among cats at this period, which was thought to be of the same 

 nature as the distemper in dogs : ' The cats are also subject to 

 this disease (distemper). We have had occasion to see many 

 farmers in the neighbourhood of Chartres, who have usually a 

 score of cats on their farms, lose the whole of them by this 

 disease during the winters of 1783, '83, and '84/ ^ 



The Cattle Plague was so severe in Holland in the last and 

 this year, that more than 300,000 head of cattle were lost.^ 



With regard to the epidemic influenza prevailing in England 

 at this time, Dr Darwin has the following remarks, which I think 

 worthy of reproduction. *The catarrhus contagiosus is a fre- 

 quent disease amongst horses and dogs; it seems first to be dis- 

 seminated amongst these animals by miasmata diffused in the 

 atmosphere, because so many of them receive it at the same 

 time, and afterwards to be communicable from one horse or dog 

 to another by contagion. These epidemic or contagious catarrhs 

 more frequently occur amongst dogs and horses than amongst 

 men, which is probably owing to the greater extension and 

 sensibility of the mucous membrane which covers the orjran of 

 smell, and is diffused over their wide nostrils and their large 

 maxillary and frontal cavities. And to this circumstance may 

 be ascriljed the greater fatality of it to these animals. 



* In respect to horses, I suspect the fever at the beginning to 

 be of the sensitive, irritated, or inflammatory kind, because there 

 is so great a discharge of purulent mucus; and that, therefore, 

 they will bear once bleeding early in the disease, and also one 

 mild purgative, consisting of about half an ounce of aloe and as 

 much white hard soap mixed together. They should be turned 

 out to grass both day and night for the benefit of pure air, unless 

 the weather be too cold (and in that case they should be kept in 

 an open airy stable without being tied), that they may hang 

 down their heads to facilitate the discharge of the mucus from 

 their nostrils. Grass should be oflered them, or other fresh 

 vegetables, as carrots and potatoes, with mashes of malt or of 



1 Barrier. Ibid. ^ Heusin^er. Op. cit., p. 261. 



