Pictou Cattle Disease, etc. 643 



suitable agents especially deficient in albuminoids. The Pictou 

 farmers, being nearly all fishermen, neglect the farms during the 

 summer season, so that hay is only cut after the seeds have been 

 shed, and when little nutritive matter is left in the stalks. Almost 

 all the cases he saw were on such neglected farms. Wyatt John- 

 ston, however, found it equally prevalent in over- fed animals, so 

 that hepatic disorder from either extreme seems to conduce to it. 

 Again, if caused by lack of nutrition in the hay, winter, rather 

 than summer, ought to be the season of attack and prevalence. 

 Starvation and excess may both favor the attack, but the gradual 

 extension from farm to farm, is strongly suggestive of the presence 

 of a specific cause — probably a living organism. 



The limitation of the disease to certain farms and even fields, 

 and the cirrhotic condition of the liver remind one of the 

 Schweinsberg disease of horses, and the lupinosis of sheep, in 

 which the poison is evidently the product of cryptogamic or bac- 

 terial growth. With the damp, foggy climate of Nova Scotia, it 

 would not be surprising if it should be ultimately shown that the 

 source of the trouble is in a cryptogam which has as yet only in- 

 vaded a given limited area. The winter immunity would be 

 explainable on this basis. So also would be the statement of 

 Wyatt Johnston that " When it attacks a new farm it affects 

 chiefly animals that have been on the farm for two or three 

 years. By the end of the second year it kills or attacks 10 per 

 cent., and by the end of the third season it has practically in- 

 volved all the old cattle which have been allowed to remain on 

 the farm." The hepatic disorder being a progressive one and 

 probably due to the toxic products of fermentations carried on 

 outside the animal body, a few only would show the morbid 

 results at first, while later, with advancing structural changes in 

 the liver, and an increase of the toxins that cause it, the number 

 of sick animals would steadily increase. 



Symptoms. The animal is at first dull and sluggish, with 

 drooping head, lusterless eyes, staring coat, normal respiration 

 and temperature, pulse often about 60 per minute, relaxed bowels 

 and marked diminution of the milk secretion. The milk acquires 

 a bitter taste and unpleasant odor. The pulse is usually full and 

 soft, and the eyeballs ma}' bulge visibly out of the sockets. The 

 diarrhoea tends to encrease, the stools becoming liquid and black, 



