262 
THE CATTLE PLAGUE IN SPAIN. 
the veterinary surgeon will be eliiefly direeted to what Don 
Jose has stated in referenee to the bovine seourge that has 
lately caused us so much loss and inconvenience. 
Spain has certainly been wonderfully preserved from the 
deadly visitations of this malady. When nearly the whole of 
Europe was suffering from successive invasions during the 
last century, Spain may be said to have escaped; and in this 
century she has been equally fortunate. In her records, we 
read of epizootics among horses, and wide-spread ^hlistempers^^ 
which affected man and beast alike; but the horned crea¬ 
tures, always most predisposed to general maladies, appear to 
have suffered but little from the contagions that decimated 
the herds of neighbouring countries. Don Jose satisfactorily 
accounts for this happy exemption of the Spanish cattle : 
I fully believe that the chief reason is, that we rarely, and 
in very small numbers, import any foreign cattle into Spain. 
There is comparatively little beef eaten throughout the 
country ; more is produced than is consumed. Our exporta¬ 
tion, especially from the north and Gallieia, is considerable, 
and, in truth, our cattle importation is nil. The Gallieia and 
Asturias cattle find their way to France and to England, but 
none come thence to us.We are in hopes that the 
peculiar topographic character and configuration of our coun¬ 
try may stand in the way of the production of the disease in 
Spain 
Though the commercial relations between other countries 
and Spain have been largely increased since the introduction 
of railways and steamboats, yet so long as she exports and 
does not import cattle, it must be a very rare accident that 
will bring this plague to her shores. No better proof could 
be given of the manner in which that disease is spread, from 
its generating focus or foci, or of the fact that it cannot arise 
spontaneously beyond its birth-place in the Steppes. But 
Don Jose, in accurately pointing out the reason for the 
exemption of the cattle in Spain from this disease, has not, 
I think, been so accurate with regard to its history. Has 
the malady ever appeared in Spain? Onr colleague says no. 
The dreadful cattle plague, which is ravaging England and 
Germany, has not attacked the large herds of these animals. 
It has never done so in its present rinderpest form, for on 
consulting the numerous essays of our old Spanish veterinary 
surgeons, we find, that though intimately acquainted with all 
the Spanish cattle diseases, they do not either directly or in¬ 
directly tell of it, showing that they did not know it. 
The cattle epidemics which have raged some time from 1709 
till now, have all assumed quite a different character; and the 
