122 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



condition of turnips grown on ill-drained lands. Tn 1850 T was engaged in investigating 

 the diseases of Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire, for the Highland and Agricultural 

 Society of Scotland. I then distinctly ascertained that tracts of land of the same charac 

 ter, and adjoining one another, grew turnips capable or incapable of producing the dis 

 ease, according to the state of drainage. Indeed, farmers whose lands were well cultivated 

 were sometimes surrounded by poor people, growing turnips on small plats, or so-called 

 &quot;pendules,&quot; of the same lands, but without the advantages of good drainage. The farm 

 ers cows were healthy; whereas those fed on the poor people s crops suffered from &quot;red 

 water,&quot; after calving. This is a distinct form of enzootic hrernaturia, due apparently to 

 some modifications in the character of a root, grown on damp and retentive soils. It is, 

 therefore, proved that the conditions of soil may injuriously affect domestic animals, and 

 produce a definite and distinct disease, through foods that are usually wholesome. But 

 the enzootic luematuria which does not depend on a root crop, and which attacks steers, 

 heifers, pregnant and even calving cows, has usually been ascribed, like the milk-sick 

 ness of Illinois, to some definite poison ; and the singular manifestations of the disease, 

 as it travels from Texas, would give weight to such an opinion. The &quot;darn&quot; of Aber 

 deenshire was supposed at one time to be due to a harmless, wild anemone, and afterward 

 to the &quot;darnel grass,&quot; or Lolium temulentum ; but the opinion which I formed on the 

 spot was, that the cattle died from eating the young shoots of oaks, and other astringent 

 plants. 



Medical men have had their attention directed to this subject during the past sum 

 mer; and, in some instances, they have referred to it as a malignant typhus or typhoid 

 fever. It is widely different from both in its origin, development, and progress. The 

 morbid lesions, so far as blood extravasations are concerned, might suggest an analogy to 

 typhus; but this is not the only disease associated with blood changes and petechise. Who 

 ever saw a spontaneous development of malignant typhus on the healthy, open prairies 

 of this country, even in man? If it be typhus, how is it that it is not contagious, and 

 certainly not infectious? If typhus, why do not the sick western steers communicate it as 

 readily as the Texan cattle? It is assuredly neither typhus nor typhoid fever; and its origin, 

 in the causes which we have reason to believe operate most in its production in the South, 

 approaches ague more closely than any other disorder. Splenic fever is not an intermit 

 tent or remittent disease; but it probably manifests itself spontaneously in districts, such 

 as are commonly invaded by malaria, and this is what we see constantly in relation to the 

 enzootic diseases of animals, and especially those in which the spleen has a tendency to 

 congestion, hemorrhage, and enlargement. 



There is really no analogue in man, so far as my observations extend ; and, in stating 

 that the circumstances of its development resemble the reputed results of malarioua 

 intoxication, it must not be thought that I believe in the commonly accepted, but very 

 vague and unsatisfactory, notions as to the nature of malaria. The conclusions, therefore, 

 which I am disposed to draw from all the facts and arguments adduced in relation to the 

 causes and nature of splenic fever, are 



1. That southern cattle, especially from the Gulf coast, are affected with a latent or 

 an apparent form of the disease. 



2. That they become affected in consequence of the nature of the soil and vegetation 

 on which they are fed, and the water which they drink. 



