History of Animal Plagues. 523 



vious disease, drop down and die. These, when dead, are by the 

 most judieious planters immediately buried, and often there is 

 a watchman appointed to prevent the new-bought negroes and 

 others of the poorer sort from digging up the carcases and feed- 

 ing upon them; for when this happens it generally costs them 

 their lives, especially if they eat the liver, or any part of the en- 

 trails. In this case the distemper breaks out in the shape of 

 plague-boils, near the armpits or temples." He adds : " I have 

 known one very extraordinary instance of its virulency — a negro 

 woman was carrying upon her head, in a wicker basket, a piece ot 

 this flesh that had been newly cut off from a dead distempered 

 carcase, and a few bloody sanious drops fell through the basket 

 upon her breast. In a few hours she was swelled all over, and 

 was not able to move a limb, and in about two days there ap- 

 peared mortifying ulcers in every part where the drops fell, and 

 though speedv methods, &c., were used, the whole breast and 

 adjacent affected parts were taken off close to the bones.". . . . 

 A distemper equally fatal prevailed in some districts of Barba- 

 does in the year 1795. In the month of April of 1796, I made 

 a tour of the island, and at the plantation Apeshill, near Hole's 

 town, had the following very curious information from our host, 

 Mr Cummins, a very intelligent and respectable planter. The 

 malady was fatally epidemic on this plantation, and carried off 

 more than 50 head of cattle, and the number of negroes who 

 died in consequence of eating the flesh of the diseased animals 

 was also considerable. The description which Mr Cummins 

 gave of it, proved its identity with the Grenada distemper of 

 1783-4, but he could assign no cause for it. A very singular 

 instance of the excessive virulence and diffusive power of this 

 poison occurred in his own family. One of his children, a girl 

 of three years old, during the prevalence of the epidemic, took 

 for her breakfast one morning so large a portion of milk as to 

 leave a very scanty allowance to the other children. This milk 

 was taken from a cow which unfortunately then labouretl under 

 the distemper. At the end of four days, the child was seized 

 with all the usual symptoms of the j^laguc, sore or malignant 

 carbuncle, which had been observed to take place in the negroes 

 who ate of the llcj-h oi' the diseased cattle. She recovered with 



