438 
Foot-and-Moutli Disease. 
causes under which it first arose, we know no more than we 
know of the origin of evil. 
The fact is admitted that foot-and-mouth disease is highly 
contagious ; it can be certainly communicated by association of 
diseased with healthy animals ; and the direct or indirect con- 
veyance of the poison which is contained in the secretions, 
especially in the saliva, to a healthy animal, usually produces the 
disease. In the absence of the specific virus, however, no com- 
bination of causes has been known to occasion the malady ; and 
it is therefore unreasonable to assume that hardships of any 
kind are capable of inducing it. Outbreaks commonly occur 
in situations where no direct or indirect contact with diseased 
animals can be traced, but the same statement applies with 
equal force to all forms of contagious and infectious disease of 
man and animals : the difficulty must be accepted as real, and if it 
is necessary to assume something, in order to explain the occur- 
rence, it appears to be more logical to admit that the poison, 
which is known to have the power to induce the disease, has 
been carried in some undiscovered way, than to speculate on 
the possible existence of new causes, of which nothing can be 
demonstrated, and of the operation of which in the production 
of the disease no single instance can be adduced. 
Vesicular diseases among cattle were evidently well known 
to the earliest writers on epizootics. Mills refers to a malady 
among cattle in Germany and Italy which was introduced from 
Hungary in 1711, and which was distinguished by some of the 
prominent features of the foot-and-mouth distemper of the pre- 
sent time. The tongue was inflamed and covered with blisters, 
and there was a constant discharge of saliva, which, being 
dropped on the grass, communicated the infection to sound 
cattle. A little later a similar disease existed in Moravia and 
also in France, and, according to Mr. Finlay Dunn, it extended 
to Great Britain about the middle of the eighteenth century. 
In 1810 a similar aphthous affection appeared in many parts of 
France. In 1834 it was prevalent in Hungary, Lower Austria, 
Bohemia, Saxony, and Prussia. In 1837 an aphthous disease 
occurred among cattle in the Vosges, and soon afterwards in 
Switzerland. The affection extended over France and Holland, 
and reached England in 1839. 
Whether or not the disease which attacked cattle in this 
country in the middle of the eighteenth century was allied to or 
identical with foot-and-mouth distemper cannot be determined. 
The records of animal plagues are obscured in the earliest 
works by the use of terms which now have no definite mean- 
ing, as blain, murrain, or distemper ; but there is no doubt 
whatever of the identity of the vesicular disease which attacked 
