84 Third Annual Report of the 



stood. Xone of the rest of the herd seemed to be affected at the 

 time, and continued to be in apparent good health until about 

 the middle of August, when, at that time, six of the cows pre- 

 sented symptoms of disease, and, after ten or twelve days, died. 

 Some of them were opened and the lungs found to be affected. 

 At the time of my visit there w-as ten cows which presented 

 symptoms of a febrile character, and, after an examination, I 

 pronounced the trouble to be either septic poisoning or pulmo- 

 nary anthrax, and requested the superintendent of the premises 

 to allow me to kill one to decide, upon post-mortem examination, 

 which ofthediseasesitwas. Hewould not consent to the request 

 unless I first paid for the animal, which I refused to do. I then or- 

 dered the animals treated with remedies which I thought suit- 

 able for the disease, and left them, with the understanding that 

 I was again to visit them ton days later. While on the premises 

 investigating the sanitary surroundings, we were informed by 

 the superintendent in charge that the herd was fed upon soured 

 corn and bran, and the water was from the city water supply, and 

 kept constantly before the cows in stationary buckets. During 

 our stay on the premises we had no opportunity of interviewing 

 the actual owner of the herd, but between the time of my first 

 and second visit I saw Mr. Olney, and he informed me that the 

 cows were fed on spoiled or fermented canned corn that had 

 been rejected by the purchasers and returned to the Stanwix 

 Canning Company, at Rome, N. Y., who, in turn, sent it to Mr. 

 Olney's farm. He also said that the water buckets were never 

 properly cleaned, and that the sediment was allowed to remain 

 and be stirred up and drank by the cattle at each influx of water. 

 This information gleaned from Mr. Olney, and also the fact that 

 a microscopical examination of the blood of one of the diseased 

 eows failed to disclose the haciUus anthrasis of anthrax fever, 

 but did show a broken down, attenuated condition of the blood 

 corpuscles, and left no doubt in my mind that the disease was 

 septic poisoning from the ptomaine generated in the decomposed 

 corn. The day after my visit, on August twenty-seventh, 

 one of the cows died, and a post-mortem was held by the veter- 



