224 
FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE. 
Surrey, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Cheshire, 
Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, 
Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Suffolk, Shropshire, Notting- 
hamshire, Northampton, Oxfordshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, 
Essex, Northumberland, Cumberland, Aberdeenshire, Ayr- 
shire, Fifeshire, Morayshire, Perthshire, Haddington, Lanark 
and, Clackmannan. 
In more than 200 districts in these counties the affection 
is admitted to exist, reports of fresh outbreaks, which already 
number over 2000, are received almost daily, and it is quite 
certain that a very large number of attacks have yet to be 
recorded. 
Nature and General Character of the Mouth and 
Foot Disease in Cattle, Sheep, and Pigs. 
Eruptive fevers (exanthemata) constitute a large class of 
diseases which are presumed to depend upon the presence of 
some poison in the system, its subsequent elimination giving 
rise to the distinctive symptoms of the malady. The mouth 
and foot complaint belongs to this class of disorders, and 
although ordinarily one of the least fatal, it sometimes 
assumes a very severe form, and occasions considerable 
destruction of the tissues of important parts. Perhaps there 
is no disease of animals which varies more in the degree of 
malignancy which it exhibits in different seasons, under 
apparently similar conditions. Foreign cattle frequently 
suffer from the malady in its most virulent form ; but English 
cattle are not exempt, under certain conditions which are 
favorable to the development of the virus, from the most 
violent manifestations of the morbid action. Susceptibility 
to an attack appears to be increased by travelling, by 
pregnancy, parturition, lactation, and also by change of 
locality; but neither age, condition, management, climate, 
temperature, nor any common causes of disease, seems to 
exert any modifying influence. No extremity of privation, 
nor the continued action of ordinary causes, is capable of 
inducing it; and one reason for the indifference which has 
been shown in respect of its ravages, is to be found in the 
belief of its spontaneous origin, an idea which arises out of 
the observation of its frequently unaccountable appearance in 
isolated places. 
The conviction has gained strength from the discovery, 
long since recognised, that cattle when being travelled from 
fair to fair are often attacked ; but there is nothing remark- 
