History of Animal Plagues. 539 



much from the severe and long winter, and an unusually cold 

 and hungry spring. It continued during similar springs, when 

 the irregular weather and the severe storms damaged the vines. 

 Not a single vine was spared, and this misfortune spread as far as 

 the Elbe, lasting for seven vears.' ^ A great mortality among 

 geese and fowls occurred in America; death was very rapid.- 



An epizooty among cats in Holland. 'The excellent phy- 

 sician and naturalist. Professor Schacht of Harderwyk, wrote to 

 me in May, 1796, that the cats of that neighbourhood had been 

 attacked with a peculiar skin disease, which had the appearance 

 of scabies. They had also an acrid, stinkins; discharge from the 

 eyes, which at last blinded them. It was observed that in the 

 previous months, from February to April, they were excessively 

 lascivious and their night cries were particularly loud.' ^ 



In this year Dr Darwin of Derby whites: 'The parotitis siip- 

 piirans, or mumps with irritated fever, is at times epidemic 

 among cats, and may be called parotitis felina ; as I have reason 

 to believe, from the swellings under the jaws, which frequently 

 suppurate, and are very fatal to those animals. In the village 

 of Haywood, in Staffordshire, I remember a whole breed of Per- 

 sian cats, with long white hair, was destroyed by this malady, 

 along with almost all the cats of the neighbourhood ; and as the 

 parotitis or mumps had not long before prevailed amongst human 

 beings in that part of the country, I recollect being inclined to 

 believe that the cats received the infection from mankind, 

 though in all other contagious diseases, except the rabies canina 

 can be so called, no different genera of animals naturally com- 

 municate infection to each other; and I am informed, that vain 

 efforts have been made to communicate the small-pox and 

 measles to some quadrupeds by inoculation.' ^ 



A.D. 1797. The winter was long and cold, and the summer 

 rainy. Catarrh in Entrland in the sprinsf. ' Was also a year ot 

 great blight.' "' The same epidemics that were noticed last year 

 were causing much mortality in America. ' In Quito, so destruc- 



^ Die Faulbruroder Bienenpcst. Dresden, 1804. 



2 IVfl/sti'r. Op. cit., vol. i. p. 520. ^ lilumfiibuch. Voigt Magazin. 



* Dr Danuin. Zoonomia, London, 1791, vol. ii. p. 229. 



* Sir J. Banks. On Diseases in Corn. 



