ON EPIZOOTIC DISEASES. 
99 
At length she strikes a universal blow. 
To death at once whole herds of cattle go : 
Sheep, oxen, horses fall, and heaped on high. 
The differing species in confusion lie. 
Red blisters rising on the men appear, 
And flaming carbuncles, and noisome sweat. 
And clammy dews ; 
Till the slow creeping evil eats its way. 
Consumes the parching limbs, and makes the life its prey.” 
Georgies iii, 820. 
Before we proceed to the character of the epidemic in the dif- 
ferent portions of the Christian cera, it perhaps may be useful to 
pause for a moment. One circumstance, and a very important 
one it is, arrests our attention. The pestilence uniformly selects 
the quadruped as the first object of its attack. Moses, in the 
earliest record of this malady, states, that the hand of the Lord 
was upon the cattle and horses, &c. This punishment having no 
effect, boils and blains break forth on man and beast. 
Ovid in his account of the depopulation of iEgina, states, that 
The young disease with milder force began. 
And rag’d ’mong birds and beasts, excusing man. 
But at length the infection spread to the human being, and the 
island of iEgina was almost depopulated. 
At the siege of Troy, 
‘‘On mules and dogs the infection first began, 
And last the vengeful arrows fixed in man.” 
In the different accounts of the epidemics related by Livy, it 
is recorded, that the pestilence first appeared among cattle, and 
was succeeded by a more fearful one attacking the human being. 
Silius Italicus gives an account of an epidemic that first ap- 
peared in the dog, and then in the bird, horses, and cattle, and, 
last of all, the human being. 
We are not yet authorised to draw any conclusion from this; 
but it is stated as a fact. 
Another fact is, the peculiar appearance of the viscera. Ovid 
says, that, 
“ Scarce was the knife with the pale purple stained. 
And no presages could be then obtained 
From putrid entrails, where the infection reigned.” 
Virgil states precisely the same thing: 
“ The inspected entrails could no fates foretell, 
Scarcely the knife was reddened with the gore. 
Or the black poison stained the sandy floor.” 
