The fatality was likewise the same, as will appear from the Marquis’s tables. Of 192 head of cattle, 176 died. The mortality was chiefly among the fat cattle, cows with calf, and young sucking or yearling calves; and of the surviving sixteen, only two calves out of seventy-seven lived, and these two, with seven other beasts of the sixteen, escaped the infection, tho’ constantly among the diseased: so that it is plain,
| Of 192 beasts, | 176 | died |
| 7 | recovered | |
| 9 | escaped the infection. | |
| 192 |
The mortality was as considerable in these kingdoms.
Whoever will compare the appearances, progress, and fatality, of the small-pox, with what is remarked by authors of authority, as Rammazzini and Lancisi, and other observers, relative to the contagious distemper among the horned cattle, will not be at a loss one moment to determine, whether this disease be an eruptive fever, like unto the small-pox, or not.
Now if, as the Marquis has granted in both his memoirs[24], it be a general observation, that an eruption of pustules on some parts of the body, regularly thrown out, digested, and dried, is the means used by nature to effect the cure; and that in general the morbid matter does not affect the parotid, inguinal, or other glands, nor produce large carbuncles and abscesses, as the plague does: Nay more, since it is observed by the Marquis, that the difference between the contagious distemper of 1745 and 1746, and of 1747 and 1748, was, that in the former the salutary eruptions appeared, but in the latter were, as he justly apprehends, checked by the excessive cold weather; and should it appear, that by inoculation the same regular eruptive fever has been produced, with every stage, and the same symptoms as arise in the small-pox; the nature of this distemper will then be ascertained.
I shall now proceed, my Lord, to lay before your Lordship and the Society the accounts I have received relating to the infection and inoculation of the cattle, and make some observations on the experiments made at Issurtille.
So long, my Lord, as the distemper has raged in Great Britain, not one attested proof has been brought of any beast having this disease regularly more than once. I make no doubt but these creatures may be liable to eruptions of different kinds; but as all sorts of eruptions, says Dr. Mead[25], are not the small-pox, nor measles, so every pustule is not a sign of the plague. Thro’ ignorance, or fraud, persons may have been deceived in purchasing cattle, and have lost them, as well in England as in the provinces of France mentioned by the Marquis; but until a second infection be proved, the general opinion must prevail in this case, as in the small-pox: for tho’ many have insisted on the same thing with regard to the small-pox, yet a single instance, properly vouched and attested, has never been produced, either after recovery from the natural way, or from inoculation; unless what is frequently the case with nurses and others attending the small-pox, that is, pustules breaking out in their arms and face, be allowed as the signs of a second infection.
The farmers and graziers in Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Kent, and Yorkshire, from whence I have written testimonies, all agree, that they never knew of a beast having the contagious distemper more than once. In this county particularly, Mr. J. Mehew, the farmer mentioned in my Essay, has now among his stock at Godmanchester eight cows, which had the contagious distemper the first time it appeared in Godmanchester in 1746. It returned in 1749, 1755, and 1756; the two last not so generally over the town as the two former years. All these four times Mr. Mehew suffered by the loss of his cattle; yet those eight cows, which recovered in 1746, remained all the while the distemper was in the farm the three years it raged, were in the midst of the sick cattle, lay with them in the same barns, eat of the same fodder, nay of such as the distempered beasts had left and slabbered upon, drank after them, and constantly received their breath and steams, without ever being in the least affected. Is not this a convincing proof? If in general the cattle be susceptible of a second infection, how comes it, that not one of these eight cows were affected?
In the years abovementioned the distemper spared no beast, but such as had recovered from that disease: and this is confirmed to me by Mr. Mehew’s father and brother, all the chief farmers of Godmanchester, and is the opinion of all the farmers and graziers in Huntingdonshire, who are so thoroughly convinced of there being no second infection, that they are always ready to give an advanced price for such cattle as have recovered from the contagious distemper.
The Rev. Mr. Scaife, assistant to the Rev. Dr. Greene, Dean of Salisbury, in his parish of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, acquaints me, that the farmers in that neighbourhood lost, in 1746 and 1747, twelve hundred head of cattle, in 1751 four hundred and seventy; and tells me, that Mr. Ivett, Sayers, Moor, Dent, Lawson, chief farmers at Cottenham, Mr. Taylor, Sumpter, and Matthews, of his own parish of Histon, and the farmers of Wivelingham alias Willingham, unanimously declare, they never had one instance of a beast having the distemper twice.