INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
627 
over any great breadth of our island. The disease partook 
rather of a bilious character than a pulmonic one, and as 
such it yielded more readily to remedial measures. 
As a general rule we see fewer attacks of epizootic mala¬ 
dies among horses than among cattle and sheep, and this 
would appear to be the case in other countries as well as in 
our own. Whether any change by the more immediate 
application of hygienic principles, in these latter days, for 
the preservation of the health of the horse, has been wrought 
in this respect, would be more difficult to decide than may 
appear at first sight; but, be this as it may, many ancient 
writers dwell particularly on these affections. 
To the early poets of Greece and Rome we are especially 
indebted for accounts of some of them, frequent allusions 
being made to such maladies in the writings of Homer, who 
flourished about 900 years before the Christian era. Allur¬ 
ing as it is to follow the flights of a poetic genius in his 
powerful narrations of such sad events, we must still receive 
them with some degree of caution, as truth too often is sacri¬ 
ficed to the poet’s vivid ideas and figurative imagery. 
Virgil and Ovid are among the poets of Rome whose 
graphic descriptions of these diseases are preserved to us. 
Did time permit, examples from the writings of each might 
be given, but I shall content myself by quoting the well- 
known lines of Virgil, when describing one of these epizootics 
as it raged among the Alps, probably not less than 2000 
years ago. 
“ Here from the vicious air and sickly skies, 
A plague did on the dumb creation rise : 
* During the autumnal heats the infection grew ; 
Tame cattle, and the beasts of nature slew. 
* * * * * 
The steer, who to the yoke was made to bow, 
(Studious of tillage and the crooked plough) 
Tails down and dies; and, dying, spews a flood 
Of foamy madness, mixed with clotted blood. 
^ ^ -*• 
Tisiphone, let loose from under ground, 
Majestically pale, now treads the round. 
* * & * * 
The rivers and the banks and hills around 
With lowings and with dying bleats resound. 
At length she strikes an universal blow; 
To death at once whole herds of cattle go— 
Sheep, oxen, horses, fall; and heaped on high. 
The diffring species in confusion lie.” 
Here we must leave this subject, for w r e cannot at this dis¬ 
tant date undertake to decide whether this destruction of 
