358 ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
confirmed by the intelligence of its having reached the pro¬ 
vinces of Old Prussia—Posen, Pomerania, and Brandenburg— 
and finally Saxony, where it became extinguished in the winter. 
The rapid spreading of the malady in the district of Rum- 
melsburg was a very strong proof of the volatile nature of 
the contagion, inasmuch that the number of sheep was not 
more than one third of the present number; besides the 
villages are from two to three English miles apart and sepa¬ 
rated by mountains, forests, heaths, and streams ;* and, 
moreover, the commerce at that time was so trifling, and the 
roads so bad that they were almost impassable, and on that 
account but little frequented; the possibility of the malady 
having been so rapidly propagated by sheep or raw sheep’s 
hides, &c., in the district in so short a time may therefore be 
doubted. 
Applications were made on all sides for inoculation to be 
tried, and it was done as far as possible. In the space of 
from two to three months from forty to eighty thousand 
sheep were inoculated ; the weather was at the time dry and 
moderately windy, but not too hot; the thermometer stood 
from 15°—20° R. These circumstances were not considered 
favorable for inoculation, but, as was afterwards observed, 
they were favorable to the spreading of the malady. 
It was difficult to obtain a sufficient quantity of proper 
virus; and making a virtue of necessity, the author inocu¬ 
lated many whole flocks with the virus from the natural 
sheep-pox and with the blood of infected sheep, the animals 
being selected which had the disease in a mild form and 
were likely to recover. Afterwards he was enabled to obtain a 
sufficient quantity of the mitigated virus which he trans¬ 
mitted as far as the twentieth generation. But taking every¬ 
thing, weather, &c. &c., into consideration, he found no 
difference between the mitigated and the natural virus either 
in the mortality or the violence and rapidity of the malady. 
Many of his colleagues who applied to him for mitigated 
lymph were astonished when he told them that he had 
inoculated whole flocks from the natural pox and with the 
blood of infected sheep. 
The propagation of the sheep-pox and the severity of the 
attack depend principally on the state of the weather, the 
sanitary condition of the sheds in which the sheep are kept 
(sheep in German}' are stabled during the night and in bad 
weather), the mode of introducing the lymph in inoculation, 
and the locality where the inoculation has been performed. 
* The district of Rummersburg is hilly. 
