542 
HAMONT AND FISCHER ON THE 
this enzootic. They know that the rush, dysse , is hurtful; and 
they accuse it of producing this disease, which they designate by 
the name of dyssa. 
The reader will probably ask why, the cause of the evil being 
known, the Egyptian does not endeavour to preserve his sheep 
from a pest by which their numbers are yearly diminished. 
Whoever has visited Egypt can readily answer that question. 
The fellah does not concern himself about the preservation of 
those animals which are with others the objects of assiduous 
care. Whether they prosper or not is an affair in which he is, 
comparatively, little interested. Poor, humiliated, brutalized, he 
vegetates in a little habitation, the entrance to which is half 
closed by filth. This pitiful cabin he has constructed close by 
a marsh, and by the side of a cemetery, through the crevices of 
the tombs of which the most infectious odours are continually 
diffused. 
The hope of escaping from oppression and plunder forces him 
to adopt this mode of conduct. Plunged in an abyss of misery, 
the Arab seeks to avoid every labour, the fruit of which will not 
be his. Industrious or idle, it will be the same to him. No im¬ 
provement will be effected in the breeds of domesticated animals 
until the inhabitants enjoy those rights and that protection 
which a barbarous government has torn from them. 
In 1829, one of us, by order of the viceroy, visited many of 
the provinces of the Delta, to oppose, if possible, some barrier to 
the plague, which decimated the flocks, so indispensable to the 
tyrant as well as the slave. The inhabitants laughed at the 
advice which we gave them as to the management of their sheep. 
“ Before we concern ourselves,” said they, “ with the preserva¬ 
tion of the health of the oxen and sheep, we demand the means 
of our own existence, which they now refuse us !” Dr. Pariset and 
one of us were resting in the house of the chief of one of the vil¬ 
lages. We were talking with him of this pest, and the presumed 
cause of it, and the possibility of effecting its utter disappearance 
from Egypt. Our host laughed, and said, “This pest has always 
raged in our villages, and it would not be wise to get rid of it. 
Let our families be comfortably lodged, and let them have whole- 
some.and proper food, and not only this pest, but many another 
will disappear from our country.” 
All the agents capable of producing rot being well known, it 
remains to determine their mode of action, and especially to 
ascertain the nature of the changes which they produce. 
It has been too much the custom in our medical schools, for¬ 
getting the different organization of different animals, to trace 
disease in all its forms to one principle alone, viz. irritation : but. 
