18(5 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO ] 746. 



Dr. Parsons, another ingenious Fellow of the Society, said, that the cattle in the high grounds 

 about Hampstead, Highgate, Millhill, and Hembdon, had hitherto remained free from the infection ; 

 but that it had spread all about in the lower grounds. 



Mr. Hoffman, a learned Danish gentleman present at this meeting, said, this infection was first 

 carried into Denmark by raw hides of cattle dead of this distemper, rubbed with wood ashes, in 

 order to preserve them fit for tanning, which were brought from Flanders ; that some cows sickened 

 in a few days after the unpacking of these hides in Denmark; and that they liave lost above 50,000 

 head of cattle in that kingdom. 



At another meeting, Mr. CoUinson, a member greatly deserving of the Society, acquainted the 

 company present, that a farmer in Essex, who had the distemper among his cows, invited a neigh- 

 bouring farmer to come and assist him in giving drenches to some of his sick cattle ; the good natured 

 man went accordingly, and spent best part of the day with his neighbour, to lend him his help in 

 his distress, little dreaming of what ill consequence this friendly act was about to prove to himself; 

 for, being so many hours conversant with the diseased cows, so much of the infectious effluvia 

 adhered to his clothes, that as he was walking home, which was about a mile and half, his way 

 lying through a field in which several of his own cows were feeding, he no sooner entered the field 

 but the cattle all left oif their grazing, ran to the farther end of the field snorting and flinging up their 

 noses, showing the greatest uneasiness at their master's approach, and endeavouring as much as pos- 

 sible to avoid him, as though they smelt something very disagreeable; and so indeed it proved to 

 them, for the very next day many of them fell sick, and died in a few days. 



A certain cow-keeper in Tothill-fields, Westminster, had 30 cows, out of which number 4 only 

 have survived, 2 never took the infection, 1 had it and recovered; and he said, that one had the 

 distemper 4 several times; for that, as soon as she was well for a week or 10 days, she relapsed, and 

 went through all the stages of the disease, but now continues well. 



In St. James's Park are kept 17 cows, of which number 4 were bought in new at Welsh fair; 

 out of these 1 1 are dead; 4 never had the distemper, and 2 recovered from it. These are the cows 

 which were so plentifully blooded, mentioned in the former paper, N" 477, and one of them, then 

 said to be very big with calf, being recovered, went the proper time, had a living calf, and is well 

 and thrives; indeed they knocked the calf on the head, because they wanted the milk. 



Dr. M. was informed, that a farmer at Little Chelsea, who had but 10 cows, has not had any fall 

 sick, though his neighbours had cows sick all around him. His management was, not to let any of 

 his cattle have any communication with his neighbours, to keep them within doors, littered like 

 horses with clean straw, to feed them with good hay, and give them plenty of clean water to drink; 

 to turn them out every day at noon into his yard to air themselves; and, in the mean time, to clean 

 out the cow-house carefully; removing all the litter, washing the pavement clean with a birch-broom, 

 laying clean litter, and keeping them warm a nights. 



As a contagious distemper among the cow-kind is no new thing. Dr. M. thought proper to look 

 into the Auctores de Re Rustica; but found none so full in the account of the pestilence among cattle 

 as Columella is, in lib. 7, cap. 5. He advises, as soon as any signs of an infectious distemper are 

 perceived, to drive the cattle immediately into a different air, at as great a distance as can conveniently 

 be done, to separate the sick from the sound; and that there should be no intercourse between them, 

 lest the infection be carried to the sound. If these cautions only were strictly observed by our farmers. 

 Dr. M. thinks there is reason to hope the contagion would soon be extinguished. He would advise 

 the building several small huts with faggots and broom, at a distance fi-om each other, in some fal- 

 lowed field, and there keep a man constantly to attend the sick cattle, and to have every beast, as 

 soon as it begins to sicken, removed into one of these huts, as into an infirmary; by which means 

 the cow-house will be kept clear from infection : and never let this man go near the well cattle, but 

 keep them in the most distant pastures, and let them have huts run up likewise to shelter themselves 

 under from the inclemencies of the weather, providing them with clean straw to lie on. He heartily 



