78 DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTCEE. 



Several epizootic attacks have been attributed to rust or mildew in plants. From- 

 ment looked upon it as causing great loss among sheep in Pranconia, during the years 

 1663, 64, and 65. Ramazini, professor of medicine at Modena and Parma, speaks of a 

 contagious malady affecting men, cattle, and even the silk-worm, which broke out in 1690. 

 The preceding four or five years had been very hot, and during 1689 and 1690, much rain 

 having fallen, the country was inundated, and the grasses, fruits, and leguminous plants 

 became affected with rust. Plagues which raged among animals in Hesse in 1693, in 

 Hungary in 1712, and in Saxony in 1746, occurred with, and apparently as a result of, 

 mildew affecting vegetables. Gerlach asserts that this will produce abortion and inflam 

 mation of the womb in ewes. Numann, Masseband, and Niemann have also written on the 

 noxious properties of plants affected with rust. 



BUSTY STRAW. 



In 1804 Gohier, afterward director of the Lyons Veterinary College, but then veter 

 inary surgeon to the 20th light dragoons, published an interesting monograph entitled &quot; Des 

 effets des pailles rouilk es.&quot; The depot of Gohier s regiment was established at Arras on the 

 7th of June, with about two hundred horses. For a month they continued healthy, being 

 supplied with good forage ; some of the straw, however, was rusty. The whole regiment 

 arrived and the straw supplied was worse ; several horses fell ill, being generally attacked 

 by violent colic. In three days fourteen were affected with the disease ; but, with the 

 exception of two old horses that were ill for three days, the disease was only of a few 

 hours duration. The horses that partook most freely of the rusty straw were most 

 seriously affected. In seven days thirty had suffered, and MM. Gohier and Masigny drew 

 up a report condemning the forage. Their opinion was rejected by veterinary surgeons 

 and others called upon to inquire into the matter, and the whole evil was attributed to 

 some water, of which, however, the horses had always drunk while enjoying perfect health. 

 After considerable annoyance and litigation it was recognized that the rusty straw, and 

 even bad hay, had given rise to much disease and death among the horses of the regiment. 

 During eight months, out of seven hundred horses, there were constantly forty-five to 

 fifty in the infirmary, and in the month of November as many as sixty-two. The deaths 

 were by those diseases which always prevail when animals are badly nourished, namely : 

 stomach staggers, colic, marasmus, glanders, farcy, skin diseases, catarrhal affections, and 

 oedematous swellings. Those horses suffering from oedema were very subject to gangrene, 

 and if setons were applied, or a farcy-bud cauterized by fire, mortification of the wounded 

 parts supervened, and the animals died in a few hours. Gohier says that not only the 

 rusty straw but likewise the bad hay was a cause of the serious loss among the horses 

 of his regiment. Gohier instituted several experiments to prove that the diseased straw 

 was injurious, and not only was he successful with the straw, but a decoction of the same 

 induced loss of appetite, a thin and sickly aspect, and other evidences that the animals 

 had been poisoned. 



MOULDY BREAD. 



Flour is attacked by a very noxious red or orange-colored mould, (Pcnicillium roseum,} 

 and a less poisonous greenish-blue mould, (Penicittium glaucfn/i.) Bread made from flour 

 which has been kept in a damp place, or that which is the produce of wheat grown and 

 harvested during unfavorable weather, becomes mouldy and may be very deleterious. 



