534 History of Animal Plagiies. 



that the animals which were first attacked with the disease, and 

 which nearly all died, had been fed during the whole winter 

 with mouldy, muddy forage of the very worst quality. 



' This is confirmed by the statement of Lacroix, veterinary 

 surgeon of Poitiers, who, in an excellent description of the disease, 

 indicates the best treatment to control it. I myself have had a 

 hundred opportunities of observing this malady and its causes in 

 Argenton, in the department of Indre, where I also had occasion 

 to treat it. It raged there fearfully; attacked all animals without 

 distinction, and destroyed nineteen-twentieths of those affected by 

 it. It was only transmitted to mankind by the sting of those insects 

 which had sucked the blood of the diseased beasts. I have con- 

 vinced mvself that all the cattle which took the complaint spon- 

 taneously, and not by contagion, had been kept on bad, mouldy, 



and spoilt forage After the small-pox of sheep, I know 



no disease of animals more contagious than this putrid gangren- 

 ous fever. I do not know a single species which is exempt from 

 attack, and it passes with extreme facility from one to another. 

 It seldom prevails that it does not cost the life of some selfish or 

 imprudent men, who contract it either when removing the skin 

 from the dead animal, or emptying its rectum with the naked 

 arm when alive. 



' When I arrived, in 1793, in the district of Argenton, to 

 combat this malady, a great number of citizens had already been 

 affected with veritable carbuncles, and many had died. I had 

 the satisfaction of saving all those who had any confidence in 

 my advice. When opening an ox that had died from the 

 malady, a drop of blood which had got through the texture of 

 the glove I usually wore on my hand sufficed to induce a small 

 ulcer, which I only checked on the spot by burning it deeply 

 with a red-hot iron. The horse I rode was also attacked, not- 

 withstanding my precautions for preventing him touching, im- 

 mediately, any diseased animal ; it was cured in the same manner. 

 I have seen a sow and eight young ones die nearly all together, 

 after having smelled the bloody traces left by a cow when 

 dragged away to be buried. Fowls, turkeys, geese, and even 

 blackbirds and starlings, died after having pecked at the blood 

 of animals affected with the disease. In a dairv belon<>;ing to 



