ON THE EPIZOOTIC. 
33 
are often alike, or altogether the same. They may be confined 
to the human being or the brute, or to one species alone of the 
brute creation. 
They may recur at different seasons. The winter is usually most 
exempt from their influence, but there are times when spring, 
summer, autumn, and winter, equally witness their ravages. 
They occasionally pay us merely a passing visit ; at other times 
their murderous influence rests upon the country month after 
month and year after year. There are seasons when, by com- 
mon attention to cleanliness or the usual modes of disinfection, 
our horses, sheep, and cattle seem to bid them defiance : at other 
times, no care can preserve them from the attack ; they become 
a murderous pestilence, and destroy every thing before them. 
At times they exhibit an enzootic character. They seem to depend 
on some local affection or influence, but by degrees they assume 
an epizootic type, and their virulence is increased in propor- 
tion as they spread around. At times the disease assumes a 
simple character, and promises to be easily treated, but soon, 
and without warning, it presents a complication of diseases, 
dreadful in the extreme. 
What is the cause of this fearful malady ? Occasionally it 
may be easily traced, and especially when, and in proportion as it 
can be referred to some dangerous or malignant principle. Tem- 
perature has much influence, and especially the rapidity, and 
extent, and frequency of its changes. These circumstances, at 
least, predispose to the influence of causes of disease from which 
the animal would be otherwise exempt. The nature of the soil 
has much to do with it ; and yet it occasionally happens, and it 
especially did so with regard to the late epidemic, that it seems 
to be altogether unaffected by heat or cold, or drought or moist- 
ure. In all probability, however, some one of these causes was 
deeply concerned in the rise and propagation of the evil. 
These epizootic influences are often observable in the lower 
animals, and the use of their diseased milk and flesh has been 
productive of malignant disease. The maladies of the quadru- 
ped often proceed from and as often are productive of similar 
complaints in the human being, and occasionally there are pe- 
riods in which they are common victims to the same pest 
The epizootic that has lately prevailed in our country has been 
mostly confined to certain species of the inferior animals ; and 
among the principal sufferers have been cattle, although the 
sheep, the horse, and even the feathered biped, have not escaped. 
’In several consecutive papers it is my intention to give a rapid 
outline of the origin, progress, and most successful treatment of 
this malady ; but, perhaps, my readers will forgive me if I attempt 
VOL. XV. E 
