552 
Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 
here ; where they were sent, and all about them. I gave tho full history, 
ami tho correctness of my statements has never been disputed. 
I have another object, however, in directing yonr attention to the 
two outbreaks of the disease. At the time I wrote that work, I be- 
lieved, from all the researches I had then been able to make, that 
England had been entirely exempt from the affection until 1847, although 
there are most satisfactory accounts as to the progress of the discaso 
on the Continent, from the latter part of the fifteenth century down 
to the present time. A year or two afterwards, however, on looking 
through some old works upon diseases of this nature, particularly 
measles and small-pox in the human subject, I met with one by a 
Dr. Fuller, dated 1730, in which the author labours to establish the 
fact that variolous diseases are distinct and separate ; and not only 
so, but that if a disease such as small-pox cannot be communicated 
from the animal to the human subject, it cannot be regarded as a 
similar affection. Then, taking up the view which I have combated, 
viz., that we do not require positive identity, but an analogy between 
these affections, — he says : — ■ 
" The small-pox and its spurious sorts are peculiar to man, exclu- 
sive of all other animals. Mr. Mather, indeed, in his letter from 
Boston, in New England, saith that Dr. Leigh, in his natural history 
of Lancashire, reporteth that there were some cats known to catch the 
small-pox, and pass regularly through tho state of it ; and at last he 
telleth us, we have had among us the very same occurrence. But if 
we had seen and examined the matter, perhaps it would have been 
found a very different thing from our own small-pox. For, in liko 
manner, there was about the year 1710 or 1711, upon the Southdowns 
of Sussex, a certain fever raging epidemically among the sheep, which 
the shepherds called the small-pox, and truly in most things it nearly 
resembled it. It began with a burning heat and unquenchable thirst. 
It broke out in fiery pustules all over the body. These pustules 
maturated, and, if death happened not first, dried up into scabs about 
the twelfth day. It could not be cured — no, nor in the least mitigated 
by phlebotomy, drinks, or any medicines or methods thoy could 
invent or hear of. It was exceedingly contagious and mortal, for 
where it came it swept away almost whole flocks ; but yet it could in 
no wise be counted the same with our human small-pox, because it 
never infected mankind." 
Any one familiar with sheep-pox, upon reading this account of 
Dr. Fuller, must come to the conclusion that in 1710 or 1711 tho 
disease existed among the sheep in Sussex ; but as to how it camo 
there, how long it continued, and by what means it was got rid of, 
we are entirely ignorant. We have thus a history of the first out- 
break, in 1710; the second in 1817, extending down to 1850; and 
the third which occurred in 18G2 in the county of Wilts. 
The Siieep-Pox in Wiltshire. 
There are some few circumstances which at least afford a fair pre- 
sumptive evidence as to the manner in which the affection was intra- 
