24 PRINCIPLES OF STOCK-BREEDING. 



affections are consumption, mesenteric disease, diar- 

 rhoea, dysentery, hydrocephalus, and glandular swell- 

 ings, the symptoms varying with the organs affected. 1 



Scrofulous diseases are of common occurrence in 

 horses, cattle, sheep, and swine, either in a congenital 

 form, or as a predisposition that may be actively de- 

 veloped at any period of life. In treating of the he- 

 reditary diseases of cattle, Finlay Dun remarks that 

 " a tendency to consumption and to dysentery is often 

 indicated by certain well-marked signs. In cattle the 

 most obvious of these are a thin and often appar- 

 ently long carcass, narrow loins and chest, flat ribs, 

 undue length between the prominence of the ilium 

 and the last ribs, giving a hollow appearance to the 

 flanks, extreme thinness and fineness of the neck and 

 withers, hollowness behind the ears, fullness under 

 the jaws, a small and narrow muzzle, . . . hard, un- 

 yielding skin, . . . thin and dry hair, irregularity in 

 the changing of the coat, inaptitude for fattening, 

 prominence of the bones, especially about the haunch 

 and tail, and want of harmony among the different 

 parts of the body, giving the animal a coarse and un- 

 gainly look appearances all indubitably hereditary, 

 and indicative of a weak and vitiated constitution, 

 and of a decided scrofulous diathesis." a 



The peculiarities enumerated are all indications of 



1 For a more extended description of this class of diseases the fol- 

 lowing authorities may be consulted : Journal of the Royal Agricult- 

 ural Society, vol. xiv., p. 124, vol. xv., pp. 79, 82, vol. xvi., p. 21, etc.; 

 Aitken'a "Science and Practice of Medicine," vol. ii., p. 215; Gross's 

 " System of Surgery," vol. i., p. 264 ; and other standard medical works. 



3 Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society \ vol. xv., p. 82. 



