OVER FEEDING AND WANT OF EXERCISE. 227 



for years in a particular region producing only sporadic or 

 separate cases ; why, in other years, when all the proximate 

 causes appear to be the same, some one of those diseases 

 assumes an endemic or epidemic form, desolating neighbor- 

 hoods or provinces ; and, finally, why, at the height of its 

 fury, it passes round and spares this household or that, or this 

 neighborhood or that, and frequently leaves as well defined 

 margins as the track of a tornado, although the population 

 was as dense without as within its track; when, I say, these 

 anomalies are explained, we shall be able to explain the 

 one under consideration. And let it be remembered that 

 the same anomalous facts will continue to exist, to stand 

 as much in the way of the true as of a false theory of 

 explanation. 



I am not tenacious for the acceptance of this explanation. 

 I merely offer it as the most probable one within my 

 knowledge. Better observed facts may hereafter throw more 

 light on the subject. 



I do not wish to be understood that restriction to dry feed 

 is necessary to produce that condition of the ewe which I 

 have assumed to be so prejudicial to the offspring. On the 

 contrary, I think it would be produced, though hardly so 

 readily or to so dangerous an extent, by an over-supply of 

 good, green feed, attended with the same other unhealthy 

 auxiliaries. It is the high condition, the excess of blood,- the 

 excited vascular system ready to assume or produce inflam- 

 matory action, which produce or co-operate with the morbid 

 tendency to non-development in the foetus. Indeed, high 

 condition alone, may, to some extent, offer a mechanical ob- 

 struction to its development. The internal fat of the dam 

 may so far obstruct the full distension of the womb that the 

 foetus can not grow to its full size anterior to birth. 



I urge letting out breeding ewes on the fields for a limited 

 time each day, because no animal more intensely craves a 

 portion of green food in the winter ; and I consider nature or 

 instinct a first-rate judge of its own wants : because the small 

 portion of green feed obtained from the fields can exert no 

 injurious influence whatever in any direction, while it prevents 

 the costiveness peculiarly incidental to pregnancy, and by 

 keeping the bowels in an open and regular state, has a strong 

 tendency to avert all unhealthy action or agencies ; because 

 traveling about and digging in the snow for green feed affords 

 a most necessary and healthful exercise ; and, finally, because 

 a neglect " of these ordinances which nature has inculcated " 



