34 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 



It was not a death of the superficial structures alone, but the skiu^ 

 teudous, and bone were all involved, aud every part of the leg be- 

 low the line of separation just referred to was completely lifeless. A 

 study of these legs showed very clearly that the disease had not begun 

 at the hoof or in the iuterdigital space and progressed upward, for these 

 parts had not been changed by disease of any kind [)revious to the death 

 of the whole affected part, which had evidentlj^ occurred very suddenly. 

 To iny mind this condition made it very plain that the trouble was not 

 the result of any disease which had begun in the interdigital space, or 

 in the skin around the coronet. There could be no mistaking the fact 

 that the worst affected animals presented tyjncal cases of dry gangrene^ 

 and the problem to be solved was to determine which of the conditions 

 that these animals were subjected to would satisfactorily account for the 

 enzootic. When we turn to veterinary literature for information in re- 

 gard to the accepted causes of dry gangrene, we learn that there are 

 verj' few agencies which are liable to affect a number of animals at a 

 time and are capable of producing this effect. Compression, burning^ 

 caustics, plugging of blood-vessels, and ergot about completes the list 

 of those that would be at all likely to produce dry gangrene in young 

 animals, and of tiiese the last is the only one that could have possibly 

 been instrumental in develo])ing the outbreaks in the West. 



The peculiarities of the disease led me to examine the feed to learn if 

 any nnusual quantity of ergot could be found. The result of this ex- 

 amination was to show that at every one of the farms where the dis- 

 eased cattle were located, hay had been fed which contained one or 

 more grasses ergotized to an extreme degree. At Keith's, Beard's, and 

 Pribbernow's, in Kansas, there was a large proportion of wild rye {Eli/- 

 miis virglnicuH^ variety suhmutieus) which contained an extraordinary 

 quantity of ergot. In many heads half the grains and in other heads 

 every grain had been replaced by the fungus. Careful weighings of 

 heads brought to Washington, and from which some of the ergot had 

 been lost in transit, gave in one case 12 per cent., and in another 

 case 10 per cent., as the proportion of ergot. Now, if the head repre- 

 sented one-half the weight of the entire plant, from 5 to 6 i)er cent, of 

 the weight of the rye must have been ergot; and if one-tifth of the 

 weight of the hay was made up of wild rye, then a 20-i)ound ration o 

 hay would contain about 4 ounces of ergot. 



As is always the case w^here an attempt is made to account for resulti 

 when the conditions affecting these have not been intelligently observe^ 

 aud carefully recorded at the time, we found some apparent discrepan 

 cies in the ergot theory. The greater part of these have been explaiuei 

 in a remarkably satisfactory manner, and if we could know every cir 

 cumstance connected with the feeding and care of the animals for thirty' 

 or forty days preceding their illness, doubtless the most critical could 

 be satisfied as to the cajase of the disease in every subject. As we are 

 compelled, however, to rely upon the more or less defective memoriea 



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