180 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1745 



He was informed, that some cow-leeches had given coloquintida and salt ot 

 tartar, each 1 oz., in a quart of warm ale ; but he imagined it must be too grip- 

 ing a purge, and improper where the guts are inflamed. Indeed he had not 

 heard of any cows recovering which took it. 



As for the cause of this distemper, he was still at a loss : he thought it could 

 not be owing to the food, because the cows which had it first in Essex ate only 

 grass, turnips, and hay or straw ; the cows about London ate, some, grass ; all 

 grains and hay, some, little or no grass, but lived chiefly on grains, turnips, 

 off-falls from the garden-grounds, and hay. 



He was in doubt as to the air ; the spring and summer were very wet, and the 

 ground very damp ; the autumn was very dry and cold ; the beginning of winter 

 very damp and cold. The cows in Essex had the distemper in summer ; it first 

 began about London in autumn : it had spread itself equally among cows which 

 had lain in the fields a-nights, and those which stood in stables or sheds: it spread 

 itself in Essex, at first into such farms where they bought in strange calves, or 

 lean cows, at market, which they did not know where they came from ; but 

 most probably from the hundreds where the disease first broke out ; but how it 

 got thither, whether by importing any cattle from Flanders, he knew not; for 

 surely there is too wide a tract of sea for any infectious miasmata to be wafted 

 over to that part of the country by the winds ! This was certain, the viscera con- 

 cerned in respiration are the parts chiefly affected. Its spreading in England had 

 been progressive ; and therefore one may reasonably think it was not constitu- 

 tional in the air, for then it ought to be universal every where ; but that it was 

 contagious, and propagated by infected cows being mixed with well cows : there- 

 fore the not buying in calves, or strange beasts, but every farmer keeping his 

 herd by itself, must be a great means of preventing the propagation of it : and 

 housing the cows a-nights might be a proper preservative against it. 



An Account of the Weaver's Alarm, vulgo Larum. By Mr. Arderon. 



N° 477, p. 555. 



Nothing is more true, than that necessity is the mother of invention ; among 

 the many instances of which, the useful contrivance described below may serve 

 as one remarkable instance. 



This little apparatus goes commonly by the name of the weaver's larum, from 

 its being chiefly or originally made use of by persons employed in that trade, who 

 have frequently occasion to rise very early to their work : and Norwich may boast 

 of its first appearance there, though the inventor's name be not known. How- 

 ever, the simplicity of the thing itself, and the singular service it may be of to 

 multitudes of people, render it not undeserving notice. 



The materials necessary to compose this little time-piece or monitor, are no- 

 thing more than a small candle, of 14 or 15 inches in length, a piece of thread 



