OUTBREAK OF StTKRA FEVER. 137 



at Parel there is a depot for manure. The dung both from Colaba 

 and Parel is transported there. Thence it is daily removed by 

 carts. A portion of it remains there throughout the night, but 

 none of it remains there longer than the morning subsequent to 

 the day of its receipt. At our old stables at Byculla a similar 

 depot existed, but the manure remained there for three days before 

 removal. At neither stable has the existence of this depot hereto- 

 fore been a cause of unhealthiness. The fever record of the Parel 

 stables for the two years of their existence prior to last autumn has 

 been an extremely satisfactory one, very much more favourable than 

 the record at Colaba. We cannot therefore find anything in the feed- 

 ing of the horses, their watering, or the drainage of their stables, 

 which would account for the outbreak. All these conditions, in so 

 far as they affect the horses' health, have been, to the best of 

 our belief, precisely the same these last four months as during 

 the many past years when "surra" was unknown to us. We 

 therefore seem directed to seek in some special climatic and 

 atmospheric conditions for the explanation of the outbreak, 

 October and November last were notoriously exceptionally 

 unhealthy months in Bombay. Malarial and typhoid fevers 

 were prevalent, and many cases ended fatally. Unusually 

 unhealthy months for human beings, they would appear to 

 have been usually unhealthy for horses also. The outbreak 

 of " surra " fever was not confined to the Company's stables. 

 Several horses attacked with it were sent to the Governmen 

 Veterinary Hospital, and others to the private Veterinary establish- 

 ments in the city. Probably, a far larger number died in their 

 owner's stables. Amongst the cases observed we have not heard of 

 a single recovery. Taking all the above facts into consideration, 

 the opinion we have been led to form is that there was some 

 specially unhealthy influence in the atmospheric conditions this last 

 autumn, which predii-posed horses to this particular blood-poison- 

 ing fever, and that the specific cause which developed the disease 

 into activity in the horses attacked with it was getting chilled from 

 exposure to the cold northerly winds which during the latter half of 

 November and the month of December blew in the evening and 

 at night. This is the conclusion to which we have been led as the 

 result of our own experience of the disease. In support of this 

 opinion we have the following facts : — (1) that the horses attacked 

 were found to have been especially exposed to cold night winds by 



