XIII. On an Epidemical Disease among Cats. By J.F.
Blumenbach^*.

The disease among the cats, which prevailed lately in
Denmark and various other countries of Europe, and which
in Lombardy destroyed a great many of these useful animals,
induced the Council of Health at Pavia to make an inquiry
into the nature of it, and to cause the result to be published
by one of their members, Professor Brera, in a small but in-
teresting pamphlet under the title of Memoria sull’ attuale
Epidemia de’ Gatti^†.

The cats attacked by this disease seemed dejected and
weak, and had an aversion to approach man; crawled about
as if under great oppression; would neither eat nor drink;
and could not endure any of the three plants of which they
are commonly so fond, Marum verum, Valerian, and Cat’s
mint. In the course of the disease the weakness and dull-
ness increased; they could scarcely support themselves on
their legs; their hair stood erect; they let their tail hang
down, and their head droop so that their neck appeared as
if prolonged; their ears were flabby and cold; the eyes
seemed smaller, and the pupil contracted; the tongue was
dry, and covered with yellow slime; they discharged from
the mouth a whitish green foam, were for the most part
costive, breathed short, and had a quick severish pulse, ac-
companied with burning heat. They at length became like
mere skeletons, were seized with violent convulsions, and
generally died on the fourth or fifth day of the disease;
which, according to the symptoms, was a nervous fever, ac-
companied with dejection. It is, however, far from being
always mortal; and many of the animals attacked by it re-
covered again gradually, without any assistance.

The method in which this disease was treated was entirely
Brownonian; that is, half an ounce of Cyprus wine, with a
scruple of pulverised valerian root, was given four times a day
to the diseased animals: aloes, and the juice of garlic, were
administered in some spiritous vehicle, and also fumigations
with vinegar. The proposal for destroying every cat attacked
by this disease was, with great propriety, rejected; but it
was at the same time ordered, that those which died of it
should be buried at a sufficient depth in the earth; that the
bodies should be covered with lime; and that the places
where they were found dead should be washed with vinegar,
ley of wood-ashes, or lime-water. It was recommended
also to separate, as much as possible, sound animals from
those insected; to give them nourishing food; to lay before
them, in particular, their three favourite plants; and to fu-
migate them often with the steam of vinegar.

That excellent physician and naturalist Professor Schacht,
of Harderwyk, informed me, by a letter dated in May 1796,
that the cats in his neighbourhood had for some weeks
been attacked by a disease which bore some resemblance to
a prurient eruption. The violent itching occasioned a de-
fluxion of the eyes, which continually watered, and they at
length became blind; their teeth at the same time dropped
out, and they died soon after with lamentable cries. It had
been observed in the preceding months, from February to
April, that their cries in the night-time, on account of their
pairing, had been extraordinarily strong and loud.

Dr. Darwin, in his Zoonomia^*, mentions another epide-
mia which prevails at times among the cats, and which he
calls Parotidis felina. It announces itself by a violent fever
with inflammation, and abundant suppuration in the region
of the salival glands beneath the lower jaw. He compares
it to a disease lately known called the Mumps (Angina paro-
tidea), and is inclined to believe that it was first communi-
cated to cats by infection from the human race. He men-
[Seite 299] tions also a disease which affects the neck and head of cats,
by which the greater part of these animals in Westphalia
died; and refers to a passage in Sauvage’s Nosologia^*, which
however, in an extract of that work in three large volumes-
octavo^†, now before me, I have not been able to find.