ON EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 
401 
of hornets had burrowed down to them, and fed on the putrid 
flesh. It was confidently affirmed, that a great proportion of the 
cases of murrain might be traced to the empoisoned sting of 
these hornets. Some persons pretended to find the black stings 
of these winged insects in different parts of the animals*. 
In 1714 it reached Piedmont, still apparently increasing in 
malignity. According to Fantoni, Professor of Medicine at 
Turin, more than seventy thousand cattle perished in that little 
territoryf. 
From Piedmont, it easily found its way into France. All the 
provinces of the south of France, and bordering on Germany, 
were devastated by it. And now its progress was rapid and 
murderous to a fearful degree ; for, before the end of the year, it 
had reached Brabant and Holland, in the latter of which at least 
two hundred thousand cattle perished : and it had crossed the 
channel to England, where it was as destructive as on the conti- 
nent; but of its history and specific character in Britain, there 
— strangely — is not any authentic record. 
The disease afterwards began to exhibit new symptoms. If it 
first attacked the membrane of the nose, it sometimes confined 
its virulence to that and the neighbouring parts, and the malady 
assumed the precise form of malignant (acute) glanders. The 
septum was ulcerated through and through, and the horse and 
the ox died in consequence of the local mischief there done, and 
the constitutional irritation consequent upon it, without deter- 
mination of the malignant principle to any other part. 
If the first attack was on the alimentary canal, there the fury 
of the disease was expended, and the animal was destroyed by 
dysentery. If the membrane of the mouth was affected, it was 
soon covered by tumours of greater or less size, and many of 
them running on to ulceration. 
The extensive ravages of murrain seemed now for awhile to 
cease ; but it frequently appeared in certain districts, confining 
itself to them, and being there sufficiently murderous, and exciting 
the too-well-grounded fear that it would break out again, clothed 
in all its terrors. 
In 1731, the epidemic of 1682 seemed to return. Glossan- 
thrax, or blain, of a malignant character was prevalent in many 
of the provinces of France, and very fatal there. 
The vesicle formed most rapidly, and, if neglected, suffocated 
the animal in less than twenty-four hours : or, if the vesicle 
broke, it was succeeded by a chancrous ulcer, far more corroding 
than chancres generally are, and which, destroying the tongue 
and posterior part of the mouth, produced the death of the ani- 
* Hurtrel D’Arboval (Typhus). f Ibid. 
VOL. XV. 3 H 
