Contagious and Epizootic Diseases. 33 



recent times. In the time of Moses they ravaged Egypt 

 until, says the record, " all the cattle of Egypt died ; " nor 

 was man spared, for " boils and blains " broke out on man 

 and beast. — Ex. IX. 3. At the siege of Troy the Grecian 

 army was decimated by a similar infliction, animals and men 

 perishing in a common destruction. — Iliad. So it has been 

 down through the ages, the great extension of the plagues 

 being usually determined by general wars and the accumu- 

 lation of cattle drawn from all sources (infected and sound) 

 into the commissariat parks. In the first half of the 

 eighteenth century it is estimated that 200,000,000 head of 

 cattle perished in Europe in connection with the Austrian 

 wars. These plagues again entered Italy in 1793 with the 

 Austrian troops, and in three years carried off 3,000,000 to 

 4,000,000 cattle in that peninsula. More recently, rapid 

 railroad and steamboat traffic and extended commerce have 

 taken the place of war in favoring their diffusion. Free 

 trade between England and the Continent since 1842 has 

 cost the former $450,000,000 in thirty years, and as much as 

 $40,000,000 in 1865-66 during the prevalence of the Kin- 

 derpest. A similar importation cost Egypt 300,000 head of 

 cattle (nearly the whole stock of the country) in 1842, and 

 others have caused ruinous but unestimated losses in Aus- 

 tralia, Cape of Good Hope, and South America. On the 

 other hand, some of the most exposed countries of Europe, 

 Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein, Olden- 

 burg, Mecklenburg, and Switzerland have long kept clear of 

 these plagues by the simple expedient of excluding all in- 

 fected animals or their products, and promptly stamping 

 out the disease by the slaughter of the sick, followed by 

 thorough disinfection, when they have been accidentally in- 

 troduced. Exclusively breeding districts, in Spain, Portu- 

 gal, Normandy, and the Scottish Highlands, into which no 

 strange cattle are ever imported, also keep clear of nearly 

 all of these destructive pestilences. 

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