258 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



There is a distressing and painful cough, and not unfrequently a 

 sore throat also, in which case the beast almost invariably hoids 

 down his head. The treatment does not at all differ from that 

 directed under the same disease in horses (13.) Bleeding only the 

 first two days, carefully sheltering, but in an open airy place, lit- 

 tering well up, 



178. The malignant epidemic influenza is popularly called mitr- 

 ain or pest ; and has at various times made terrible havoc among 



cattle. Ancient history affords ample proof of its long existence, 

 and by the accounts handed down, it does not seem to have varied 

 its types materially. In 1757 it visited Britain, producing extreme 

 fatality among the kine. From 1710 to 1714 it continued to rage 

 on the continent with unabated fury, (Lancisiss Disputatio His- 

 torica de Bovilla Peste.) The years 1730 and 1731, and from 1744 

 to 1746, witnp«sed its attack, and produced many written descrip- 

 tions of it, among which stands pre-eminent tliat of Sauvages, the 

 celebrated professor of medicine, at Montpelier. The British visi- 

 tation of the malady in 1757, elicited an excellent work from the pen 

 of Dr. Layard, a physician of liondon, which was afterwards trans- 

 lated into several languages. 



179. Symptoms of the murrain. Dr. Layard describes it as com- 

 mencing by a difficulty of swallowing, and itching of the ears, 

 shaking of the head, with excessive weakness and staggering gait ; 

 which occasions a continual desire to lie down. A sanious foetid 

 discharge invariably appears from the nostrils, and eyes also. — 

 The cough was frequent and urgent. Fever, exacerbiating, par- 

 ticularly at night, when it usually produced quickened pulse. — 

 There was constant scouring of green foetid dung after the first 

 two days, which tainted every thing around, even the breath, per- 

 spiration, and urine were highly foetid. Little tumours or boils were 

 very commonly felt under the skin, and if about the seventh or 

 ninth day these eruptions become larger, and boils or buboes appear 

 with lessened discharge of faeces, they proved critical and the animal 

 often recovered ; but if on the contrary, the scouring continued, and 

 the breath became cold, and the mouth dark in colour, he inlorms 

 VIS mortality followed. Sauvages describes the murrain as showing 

 itself by trembling, cold shivers, nose execrated with an acid dis- 

 charge from it ; purging after the first two days, but previous to 

 which there was often costiveness. Great tenderness about the 

 spine and withers was also a characteristic, with emphysema, or a 

 blowing up of the skin by air discharged underneath it. 



