ON DISEASES OF ANIMALS. 49 



has been very fatal, one half of those affected, at 

 least, have died, as is supposed ; for it is difficult 

 always to know all those that have been diseased. 

 The disease lasts but four or five days, and sometimes 

 the first knowledge of an animal's being diseased, it 

 would be found dead in the yard. It is supposed to 

 be contagious, by contact, as when it has appeared 

 in a stock of cattle, many of the stock have fallen vic- 

 tims, and in two cases in Topsfield, where persons 

 were engaged in taking off the hides of the animals 

 that had died with the disorder, their arms swelled 

 up, and broke out in large boils, which ulcerated and 

 formed a large tough black scab, some of them the 

 bigness of a twenty-cent piece, and some smaller. 

 Some, not very severe, constitutional symptoms man- 

 ifested themselves. The sores were sometimes in 

 healing, four to six weeks. After these cases of ap- 

 parent infection appeared, the animals were buried 

 without flaying, and with as little connection as pos- 

 sible. It is supposed that these two individuals were 

 inoculated, as one of them, in flaying, made a 

 slight wound on his hand with the knife, and the oth- 

 er had a fracture of the skin. The disease was so 

 rapid that little or nothing was attempted to be done 

 by way of remedy. The first appearance of disor- 

 der was when the cow came from the pasture at 

 night, she would give evidence of not filling herself 

 as well as usual, and would give a less quantity of 

 milk, would refuse the ordinary kinds of food, and 

 eat but little of the more delicate and inviting, and 

 in three or four days refuse all kinds and soon lie 

 down and die, and some purging of blood would ap- 

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