I20 Veterinary Medicine. 



bower thinks it should be traced to the parasitic fungi that grow 

 on plants, grains, and vegetation. In many instances the disease 

 has appeared simultaneously with the feeding on certain speci- 

 mens of brewer's grains, oats and hay, so that to use Trum- 

 bower's words these were the carriers if not the prime factors of 

 the disease. 



In recognizing how much cryptogams and bacteria vary under 

 different conditions of life, and what various products they elab- 

 orate at different stages of their growth, we can theoretically ex- 

 plain the absence of the disease at one time and its presence at 

 another under what seem to be identical circumstances, as also 

 the variet}' of symptoms shown in different outbreaks. While 

 this causation cannot be said to be absolutely proved, it is not 

 antagonistic to the facts in many of the best observed outbreaks, 

 and may serve as a hypothetical working tiieory until actual 

 demonstration can be furnished. The affection suggests a nar- 

 cotic poison introduced from without, rather than a disease due 

 to a germ propagated in the system. 



This need not, however, exclude tlie operation of attendant 

 conditions such as over work, plethoric feeding, excitement, close 

 stables, heat exhaustion, etc., which tend to bring about cerebro- 

 spinal congestion. Even the electric tension of Idaho, of the 

 United States generally, and of P^gypt, in connection with their 

 comparatively dry atmosphere, should not be overlooked in con- 

 sidering the possible causative factors. 



In all probability as we learn more of the true pathology of the 

 disease, we shall come to recognize not one, but several toxic 

 principles, and several different affections each with its character- 

 istic phenomena in the somewhat indefinite affection still known 

 as cerebro-spinal meningitis. 



The malad}^ has been described in horses, oxen, sheep, goats 

 and dogs, attacking by preference the young, which are not yet 

 inured to tlie unknown poison, and by preference in winter and 

 spring, the periods of close stabhng, dry feeding and shedding of 

 the coat. 



In the absence of bacteriological data from the horse, it may be 

 noted that in man cerebro-spinal meningitis, has been commonly 

 found to be associated with the presence in the meningeal exudates 

 of the micrococcus pneunionice cro2ipos££ , (Micrococcus lanceolatus 



