536 ON SPECIFIC FEVER OF HORSES, OXEN, &c. 
ship an absence of nearly all that might be supposed the exciting- 
causes of this fever on land, excepting the congregation of the 
animals, for the strictest cleanliness is imperatively enforced, 
and yet this malignant fever rages. The loss from the congre¬ 
gation of too many Arabian horses on board the ships from the 
Persian Gulph to Calcutta is sometimes very great. If the 
animals are not evidently affected previously to their being 
landed, their purchasers have afterwards too frequent cause to 
repent the mischief that has been done. 
The cheapness of poultry in India has induced many a captain 
to overstock his vessel on her homeward passage; and the conse¬ 
quence of the coops being thus crammed is, that the stomachs 
of the passengers are not to be long supplied with this kind of 
food, for the fever breaks out, and very soon diminishes the 
number of the birds. 
I have kept and have seen others keep numerous tame rabbits ; 
but, now and then, the fever would break out among them and 
carry off every one. It has been the same with poultry, wild 
ducks, and quails. The success in rearing and fattening all 
animals in India, seems to depend on a small number alone being- 
kept at any given time. 
I was not in the Himalaya mountains long enough to make 
any very accurate examination; but from the animals being 
housed from the cold and periodical rains, and from what 
I saw of the humidity of the climate even in the hot wea¬ 
ther, and four thousand feet above the plains—from sheep 
purchased for me in Thibet dying on the road over these 
mountains, and some that arrived having the rot and dying 
from the result of this fever—from what I have heard about 
the Company’s merinos, kept at this altitude, or, in the cold 
season, in the hot and dry valleys below, and from what I have 
heard others say who have resided in Himala several years, I am 
convinced that this specific fever is very prevalent among all 
kinds of animals here. Living in the clouds, therefore, does 
not prevent it: but, wherever animals are congregated together, 
we should be able to command a regular trade-wind, to renew 
the atmosphere. As we cannot do this, we should endeavour so 
to season the different domesticated animals, as to render them 
proof against the effects of this malignant fever. 
I mention these facts to shew that this specific fever will occur 
under all circumstances, simply from congregation—that the 
result of this fever in all animals, though passing under dif¬ 
ferent terms, and considered as distinct diseases, not only in the 
different genera of animals, but in the same genus, are, never¬ 
theless, only modified local affections from difference in the pre- 
