THE LATE EPIDEMIC DISEASE IN SWITZERLAND. 335 
A cow that was sold to a person in Denezy, a neighbouring 
village, carried the disease thither and died. From that time the 
disease has prevailed uninterruptedly to the present moment, 
creeping slowly but fatally from one beast to another, and from 
one stable to another. The last-named place lost so great a 
number of cattle, that all the proprietors of stock have resolved 
to slaughter every animal that exhibited the slightest symptom 
of disease, as the only means of putting a stop to the ravages of 
this insidious foe. 
The village of Villars le Comte was more fortunate, the disease 
disappearing of its own accord in the month of May. The ex- 
planation of this probably may be, that the peasants in this 
poor place rarely had more than one cow each, and this they 
got rid of as soon as they observed any suspicious appearance 
about her. 
A cow from Denezy was, in the month of May, taken to the 
market at Romond, and there sold to a native of Freiburg, who 
sent her to the Alps for the summer. She was turned out on 
an elevated mountain meadow in June, where she became ill and 
died. This excited no suspicion until July, when another cow 
belonging to the same person, who possessed about eighty head 
of cattle, also sickened and died. After this, the cases of disease 
and death became so numerous, that information was given to 
the proper authorities. 
The first veterinary surgeon who was called in did not recog- 
nise the disease. Others, however, who had seen it in the 
neighbouring country, pronounced it to be infectious, and recom- 
mended that the whole of the herd should be slaughtered. 
Fortunately, the mountain was in some degree isolated, and 
therefore there was reason to hope that the malady was as yet 
confined to the limits of this person’s property. 
In September all the animals were slaughtered, excepting two, 
one of which had been taken to a neighbouring mountain in 
July, and the other was conducted back to the meadow a few 
days before the slaughter. The former soon became ill and died, 
but not before he had infected a considerable number of the forty 
beasts with which he had been placed, and which herd it soon 
became necessary to think of destroying. Eventually, through 
this one animal, 120 head of cattle died or were destroyed. 
On post-mortem examination, many of them were found to be 
sadly diseased, which, while alive, had appeared to be in perfect 
health. The second beast that had been spared was now sought 
for, and found in a stable among six other cows. 
The College of Health at Freiburg resolved to test the infec- 
tiousness or non-infectiousness of this disease. A man, there- 
