306 TKAXSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. Lix. 



incurable, but being neither very painful nor fatal, those 

 who are seized with it generally submit to it with patience." 



As we will see illustrated later in the case of the horse, 

 the attack is worst in cold weather, and in wet, damp 

 conditions. And now for some evidence from observers. 

 Colonel Sleeman, quoted in Duthie and Fuller, tells how, 

 from combined storm and drought, several villages in Oudh 

 lost their cereal crops, and that thus deprived, the villagers, 

 in 1831, took advantage of large growths of L. sathiis, 

 giving the stalks and leaves to their cattle, and feeding 

 themselves on the seeds. The evil effects of continued 

 subsistence on this food showed themselves in 1833. " The 

 younger part of the population," writes the Colonel, " of 

 the surrounding villages, from the age of thirty downwards, 

 began to be dexjrived of the use of their limbs below 

 the waist by paralytic strokes, in all cases sudden, but in 

 some more severe than in others. About half the youth 

 of the \'illage, of both sexes, became affected during the 

 years 1833 and 1834, and many of them have lost the use 

 of their lower limbs entirely, and are unable to move. Xo 

 person once attacked had been found to recover the use of 

 the limbs affected, and my tent was surrounded by great 

 numbers of the youth, in different stages of disease, implor- 

 ing my advice and assistance under this dreadful visitation. 

 Some of them were very fine-looking young men, of good 

 caste and respectable families, and all stated that theii- 

 pains and infirmities were confined entirely to the joints 

 below the waist. They described the attack as coming on 

 suddenly, often while the person was asleep, and stated 

 that a greater portion of the young men were attacked 

 than of the young women." One statement puts the pro- 

 portion as twelve males for one female. 



In one of the British expeditions against Cabul, General 

 Elphinstone's troops suffered much owing to their having 

 to mix the seeds of L. sativus with their food. 



Dr. Kirk, refen'ing to Upper Sindh, says, " The natives 

 know it to be a poison, but they eat it because it is cheap, 

 thinking that they can stop in time to save themselves 

 from its consequences. Dr. Irving gives his experiences 

 in the ' Proceedings of the Government of the North-West 

 Provinces ' for 1866, and from a pamphlet published by 



