Extracts from Communications to the Society. 301 



No cure was effecied in the brute animals : but in the 

 human subject, it was sometimes prevented by cutting 

 out the parts first affected : and such was their insensi- 

 bility, that the scalpel gave little or no pain ; nor did the 

 most powerful stimuli excite, for some days, the slight- 

 est sensation. Potash in substance, and a solution of 

 Muriate of Ammonia (Sal-Ammoniac) in vinegar, and 

 the compound tincture of Myrrh and Aloes, were Ibund 

 useful applications to the ulcers. The contiguous parts 

 were at the same time covered with cloths dipped in the 

 cold solutions of sugar of Lead in water. In five or six 

 days, a circumscribed margin of red and healthy granula- 

 tions announced the arrest of the gangrene. During the 

 process of sloughing, Calomel was applied to the ulcers, 

 andth'j Peruvian bark exhibited internally. 



This account furnishes a useful caution to farmers, 

 who, from motives of economy, often take off the hides of 

 their cattle, which die of Epidemic or other diseases. 

 The operation is never unattended by danger, whether the 

 hands be wounded or scratched; or, as in the foregoing 

 case, only immersed or covered with the infectious mat- 

 ter of the dead uuimal.* 



* [I am informed by an intelligent person, whose business 

 obliges bin; to traverse the parts of most of the Western States 

 bordering on the Mississippi, and other navigable waters; that 

 a disease, similar to the one described, frequently occurs amon^- 

 cattle turned out to feed in the forests ; as many hundreds are 

 without any care or oversight of their owners. But the disease 

 is not, to his knowledge, attended with such violent maniacal 

 symptoms ; though, in other respects, both as to duration and 

 mortal eft'ects, apparently the same. It is attributed to the cat- 

 tle eating the young shoots of the Buck-eye,f (our Horse Ches- 

 nut) in early spring, when it is the most inviting of all the 

 other forest food in those regions. The immense wastes, ex- 



t .^sculus Favia, 



