466 
ON THE rilEVAILING EPIDEMIC 
that the following observations—based as they are upon experience 
■—will be received by you as coming from a humble but zealous 
practitioner in this long-neglected branch of the veterinary art. 
But to the praise and honour of the agriculturists be it said, that 
they, as a body, are kindly co-operating with us to fill up that de¬ 
sideratum which has been suffered to exist so long at the Vete¬ 
rinary College; for, without an inculcation of first “principles.” 
grounded upon truth and science, I am confident no one can prac¬ 
tise the healing art without ofttimes exhibiting much ignorance, 
and degrading himself to a level with mere empiricism. 
“ In no malady are the abilities and acquirements of an indivi¬ 
dual more severely tested than in the treatment of an epidemic 
disease ; at the cause of which the ablest man can but conjecture, 
attributing it to be dependent upon atmospheric vicissitude, render¬ 
ing noxious to life the air we breathe, by being mingled with some 
deleterious substance, whose subtle essence, like the infectious 
miasmata of some other diseases, eludes the most careful researches 
of the chemist, its presence being only known by the effect it pro¬ 
duces. 
“ We are, at times, rendered sensible of the changes which in¬ 
organic matter is undergoing by eructations from the bowels of the 
earth, in the form of volcanoes ; by its surface being shaken with 
earthquakes ; by explosions in coal mines; and, above and around 
us, where matter only exists in a gaseous form, we are visited 
with like occurrences, as is witnessed in thunder and lightning, all, 
probably, arising from a similar cause—the re-combination of some 
of the elementary substances of nature. How feasible, then, is it to 
suppose that, during these changes, some gaseous miasm is libe¬ 
rated from “ the fertile womb of Nature,” rises and intermingles 
with the aerial medium around us, and, “ wafted by the passing 
breeze,” spreads, to lay its devastating hand upon that part of ani¬ 
mated nature in which the powers of resisting disease have been 
most enfeebled by those causes which are constantly operating to 
destroy life. 
“ Passing on to an inquiry into the nature of this epidemic, dif¬ 
fering as it does in the pristine form of its attack, and its intensity 
in different localities (and, indeed, in different animals in the same 
herd); commented, as has been observed by others, sometimes 
with blisters forming on the rugose surface of the upper part of 
the mouth, at the part opposed to the cutting surface of the front 
or incisor teeth, spreading from the tip along the upper surface of 
the tongue even into the fauces, attended with a frothing and champ¬ 
ing motion of the mouth : in others, the feet appear to be first af¬ 
fected, although quickly involving the mouth and other parts; 
and in a few cases, I have noticed an intolerable itching sensation 
