308 BURSATTEE. 



propagating the disease. Conditions favourable to the exist- 

 ence of flies may be, and probably are, favourable to the pro- 

 duction of those conditions on which the disease depends, 

 irrespective of these creatures. Also, by the irritation they 

 set up, the animal is caused to bite and rub itself so as to pro- 

 duce wounds, in which the special conditions may ensue in 

 those animals so disposed ; while materials distasteful to flies 

 may be congenial to the wound in the early stages, by proving 

 antagonistic to the development of the disease. The part 

 claimed for the regular wearing of eye-fringes in obviating the 

 disease, by preventing the attack of flies, may also be due to 

 the exclusion of the element causing of)hthalmia, the attendant 

 overflow of tears and consequent abraided surface on which 

 kunkur may develop. And because the water inspected 

 apparently contained cryptogamic debris, cells, etc. (a rather 

 ordinary occurrence, we imagine, in water containing compara- 

 tively large quantities of organic matter), we cannot assert it 

 as a cause of the disease. 



Although bearing no resemblance to those constitutional 

 conditions of an eliminative character, bursattee would appear 

 to us to depend on a state of system not yet defined, which we 

 may call the ' bursattee diathesis ;' the method by, or cii'cimi- 

 stances under, which this is acquired, we still remain igno- 

 rant of. 



As we have before hinted, its communicability from the 

 diseased to the healthy has not been demonstrated, though 

 experiments have been comparatively numerous and varied : 

 inoculation, introduction of blood, and bursattee matter into 

 the ahmentary canal have been attended with negative results. 

 Among animals, the subjects of simple healthy wounds, placed 

 under apparently identical circumstances as regards diet, loca- 

 tion (next each other in the stable, etc.), and attendants, it has 

 again and again been noticed that in the one the wounds take 

 on the bursattee character ; while in their neighbour, the healing 

 process occurs, naturally leaving nothing on which suspicion 

 of bursattee could rest, and without evidence of having been 

 affected in a previous season. 



On what this special condition depends we cannot so far 

 prove, and do not feel in a position to speculate ; but its 

 absence in winter when in the tropics all animals are most 



