240 ON FEVERS AMONGST HORSES, CATTLE, ETC. 



allowance of roots, and when practicaljle cut food — cliaff — with 

 bran moistened, or water may be given more abundantly. In 

 the hill countries these measures are not so easily carried out, 

 and hence the great mortality among sheep from Ijraxy. It is, 

 however, worthy of consideration, whether, at such times of 

 necessary change of weather, where other kinds of food are sub- 

 stituted, and the animals are folded, some such precaution as 

 already named might be adopted with advantage. The subject 

 of exercise is also one which might be profitably taken into 

 account. 



The question of feeding domestic animals is one deserving the 

 greatest attention, and should not be passed over, as it too fre- 

 quently is. From investigations already made, we learn that 

 disease arises most extensively from an over-nutritious diet as 

 well as from an innutritions one ; and besides, change of season 

 and locality Ijring about such differences in the constitution of 

 natural herbage, grasses, &c., as to give rise to some disorder or 

 disease among the stock which consume it. Food may not only 

 be rich or nutritive, and therefore highly beneficial to a certain 

 class of animals in one locality, but to those of another breed 

 and place the same will prove absolutely poisonous. And it 

 appears that this cause is so common, especially with reference 

 to oil and cotton cakes, that death in a number of animals is 

 sudden, and the reasonable supposition is that poison has been 

 administered. The same thing happens among the young stock 

 of many districts by the too indiscriminate use of good food in 

 the early spring, after the short commons of winter. In other 

 cases we have known anthrax to arise during summer and 

 autumn, where, after the sudden setting in of hot weather, the 

 pastures have been dried up, grass becoming scarce, and recourse 

 has been made to old hay and oilcake to make up the deficiency. 

 Under these circumstances, there is supplied with the food an 

 excess of uitrogenised material, and a deficiency of natural 

 moisture ; and during higher elevations of temperature there is 

 much less demand for it than in winter, the result being those 

 elements do not undergo the proper course of assimilation. Such 

 material being passed into the blood does not fail to give rise to 

 disorder. It is, in the first place, non-elaborated, or not suffi- 

 ciently developed into tissue-forming substance ; and, secondly, 

 it accumulates rapidly, because the natural disposition to inac- 

 tivity at these times produces a corresponding suspension of all 

 the organic functions ; there is no demand for muscle-producing 

 elements, because muscles are not wasting by action, and 

 excretory organs do not expel it from the system because they 

 are inactive from the same causes. The blood is surcharged 

 then with nitrogenous elements of food, and those are of a low 

 state of elaboration, insufficient to the building up of the system, 



