520 History of Animal Plagties. 



the vicinity of the fire during the winter and spring Tt 



is necessary for me here to remark, that the disorder principally 

 attacked those who had previously suffered from want and 

 hunger, and who had protracted a miserable existence by eating 

 the flesh of such animals (not even excepting horses) as had 

 died of the same distemper, and by having recourse to boiled 

 skins and other most unwholesome and indigestible food. (I 

 have been assured, in the district of Skaptefield, that the flesh 

 and milk of sick animals had a remarkably unpleasant taster 

 and that, in particular, the milk was of an unusually dark and 



yellow colour.) The loss of the horned cattle 'and sheep 



was very severely felt by the Icelanders ; but that of the horses 

 was equally so, especially by the inhabitants of the interior of 

 the country, who thus found themselves deprived of their last 

 resource, the means of having provisions and other necessaries 

 conveyed from the coast through long and tedious roads. Nay, 

 many who are totally destitute of horses, are under the necessity 

 of carrying every load of hay into the outhouses upon their own 

 backs, and frequently from a very considerable distance ; nor is 

 there any prospect of these invaluable animals being soon re- 

 placed.^ ^ 



In this year ^rabies canina^ was epizootic in the Island of 

 Jamaica, and, it is asserted, for the first time. Moseley says : 

 'During my residence in the West Indies, I never heard any- 

 thing of this disease; and from the most particular inquiries, I 

 am fully convinced that, before 1783, the rabies had not ap- 

 peared upon many, if any, of the islands.' ^ It appeared in the 

 spring in Hispaniola, and in June in Jamaica, where it continued 

 until March, 1784. It was supposed to have originated spon- 

 taneously, and it became general. Many negroes were bitten 

 and died ; and swine, goats, and horses were also wounded and 

 perished with symptoms of hydrophobia. 



The epizooty of malignant anthrax which has been noticed 

 as prevailing in the French West Indies, or Antilles, for some 



^ Hooker. Tour in Iceland, vol. ii. See also Britgmans. Verhandeling over 

 een Zwavelagtige nevel, p. 11. Knobloch Sammlung, vol. ii. p. 522. Lord Duf- 

 ferin. Letters from High Latitudes, p. 113. 



2 Mosdcy. Von den Krankheiten zwischen denwendezirkeln, p. 29. 



