Report of the Health of Animals of the Farm. 273 



Experiments. 



Nov. 14:th. — The piece of flesh was given to a cat. The 

 animal ate it very reluctantly, and only after being kept without 

 other food for a night. 



No ill effects followed. 



Two rabbits were inoculated on the same day with watery 

 fluid squeezed from out of the piece of flesh, but as in the case 

 of the cat, no ill effects were produced. 



These negative results probably depended on the parts having 

 been so long exposed to wet and stormy weather ; but taken 

 in connection with the subject of blood-poisoning of animals, 

 they are not without their value. 



Case 3. 



I am indebted to Mr. Heath, veterinary surgeon, Exeter, for 

 the particulars of this case. Mr. Heath reports that in the 

 evening of November 14th, he was called upon to see a fat heifer 

 Avhich had been taken suddenly ill, and which he found to be 

 dying. Considerable swelling existed around the throat from 

 serous effusion, and all the other ordinary indications of blood- 

 poisoning were present. The animal onlv lived two hours. 

 The post-mortem examination showed that all the organs of the 

 body were free from structural disease, the blood only by its 

 colour and altered condition affording evidence of morbific 

 changes. 



The owner of the animal informed Mr. Heath, that occasionally 

 he had lost animals from a similar cause, as he believed ; but 

 that no death had recently occurred. In this case none of the 

 structures infiltrated Avith the serum of the blood, nor other parts 

 of the body, were sent to the College. 



Case 4. 



This case, which has proved to be one of great interest, 

 as forming the basis for a number of experimental researches 

 relating to blood-poisoning, was also reported by Mr. Heath. 



The animal — a three-year-old fat steer, was found dead in the 

 pasture on the morning of November 15th, no previous illness 

 having been observed. It was one of a herd of eight, at pasture 

 on a field which had been dressed with manure from sties in 

 which some pigs had died. 



■During the past summer and autumn four or five animals 

 had died suddenly on the farm ; but not having been seen by a 

 veterinary surgeon, the cause of death was not ascertained. 

 Little doubt can, however, be entertained of their death having 



VOL. X.— S. S. T 



