THE LATE EPIDEMIC DISEASE IN FRANCE. 
327 
At the appearance of the epizootic, l had under my care 
several cows affected with hemorrhagical irritation of the intes- 
tines, or of the spinal cord. In both cases they remained 
almost always lying down, and they sunk under the complaint. 
It might be thought (but wrongly, I imagine) that in these cases 
the disease might have been diverted from its usual course, and 
then, instead of affecting the mouth and feet, these organs might 
have been spared. The contrary has generally taken place. 
The cows that were attacked most violently by the epizootic are 
those who have oftenest experienced these kinds of irritation, or 
who have afterwards died from old chronic disease. Perhaps, 
without the co-operation of these last affections, the cows would 
have experienced these kinds of irritation ; but on this I will 
not permit myself to hazard a conjecture; yet during this year I 
have seen more internal diseases than in the preceding, one, 
except those that have been brought on by suffering in the feet 
and articulations. 
Some persons have spoken of diseases of the third stomach, or 
manyplus, which they regard as a complication of the epizootic. 
I have attended a great number of these animals, who were found 
under different influences, as well as in different states of con- 
dition. Not a single affection of the manyplus has presented 
itself, and therefore I may be permitted to doubt this complica- 
tion until unanswerable observations have fixed my opinion. 
Let us pass now to the treatment. 
There are a great number of cows in Bessin. They constitute 
the riches of the country, and furnish the butter of Isigny. 
Several farms contain nearly or quite a hundred and fifty cows. 
They are pastured all the year in the open fields, where in the 
winter they are supplied with hay. They are almost in a state 
of nature, and many of them have never been attacked by this 
disease. This will astonish no one, when it is known that in 
farms of a hundred cows there are only stabling in which twenty 
can be accommodated ; and, except when they are fed, very 
little care is taken about them. It will easily be conceived 
that, when the effects of the epizootic were beginning to be felt 
at the time of the harvest, it was very difficult, not to say impos- 
sible, for the farmers to gargle the mouth several times in the day, 
and to dress the feet of their diseased cattle, as well as to make 
repeated use of fumigations, fomentations, friction, and many of 
the means recommended by various authors who have written on 
aphthous disease. 
In the commencement of the epidemic, the farmers did not 
make use of any of these means ; and, as I have already said, the 
