288 SPLENIC APOPLEXY. 



1850 it spread into the township of Liverpool, and along the 

 cow pasture road to the southward as far as Camden. A man 

 died of the disease on the 9th of February, having contracted 

 it in skinning a bullock Some sheep were afterwards seized, 

 and a shepherd who skinned them also died. 



Causes. Splenic apoplexy occurs amongst animals in high 

 condition. It is fatal amongst cattle or sheep transferred 

 from poor to rich pastures, and then always attacks first the 

 animals that are in best condition. It has been met with on 

 dry high-lying farms, where, however, the green crops are 

 forced by the richest manures distributed in large quantities. 

 It is perhaps most deadly on ill-drained lands during hot 

 seasons, and under these circumstances the anthrax poison is 

 developed in the bodies of cattle and sheep. Horses drink- 

 ing out of a pool of water, in which blood of cattle slaughtered 

 when suffering from this disease has flown, have died. Pigs, 

 dogs, and ferrets, licking the blood or eating the flesh and the 

 entrails of such animals, have suffered severely, and have 

 usually died. In the United Kingdom, and even in France, 

 there is a certain irregularity in the development of the 

 anthrax poison in splenic apoplexy, and this has led to some 

 persons doubting whether the disease was really anthrax. It 

 certainly appears that the waters animals have access to 

 when they become affected with this disease, may be appa- 

 rently pure, but are usually highly charged with organic pro- 

 ducts, the results of decomposition. Professor Voelcker 

 analyzed the water which cattle drank in Somersetshire, 

 where splenic apoplexy prevailed, and found that it contained 

 no less than 235 grains of solid matter in the imperial 

 gallon, composed of various medicinal salts which necessarily 

 affected the animals' whole constitution. The water was 

 clear-looking. I have noticed that waters drunk by cattle 

 under similar circumstances have been highly charged with 



