I 



ILL EFFECTS OF SMUTTY COEN ON CATTLE. 83 



the wall. The muscles twitclied, the horses writhed in pain, and dashed 

 about in tits of deliriuni. Two hundred and forty-nine cases of this 

 kind were admitted into the infirmary from August, 1854, to August, 

 1855. The disease raged almost as an epizootic from the month of Sep- 

 tember, 1851; and not only in the neighborhood of Lyons, but in many 

 departments of France. 



In the month of November, 1856, I was requested to see a Clydesdale 

 stallion, near Kirkcaldy, in Fife. This horse had, as is very usual on 

 Scotch ftirms, been turned into a large shed, and allowed as much hay as 

 he would eat, and a couple of feeds of oats. On moving the animal out 

 of the stable, he nearly fell, and had evidently lost much of his natural 

 control over the movements of his hinder limbs. It was no new form of 

 disease, but one of those singular forms of hemiplegia so commonly 

 olbserved in herbivorous animals, as the result of improper feeding and 

 acute indigestion. The owner thought the animal had seriously injm^ed his 

 spine. A cathartic dose of aloes, the discontinuance in the use of hay 

 which was musty, and a few doses of tonic medicine, restored the horse. 

 From that time I was consulted frequently, and in different parts, 

 especially around Edinburgh and on the border counties of Scotland, 

 regarding this disease. A large number of animals died, from ignorance 

 of the nature and treatment of the disease, which disappeared with the 

 close of a season during which the bad crop of hay was being consumed. 

 These observations are recorded as mere instances of frequently recurring 

 accidents, resulting from the feeding of horses on musty hay. 



MUSTY OATS. 



Among the numerous sources of inconvenience and loss to owners 

 of horses in Europe and America, few are more troublesome than the 

 results of feeding on musty oats. I have known a large establishment, 

 with near five hundred horses, whose entire stock was simultaneously 

 affected. Attention was first directed to the unusual wetness of the 

 litter in the morning, and a great craving for water. The animals were 

 weak, dull in harness, and hollow-flanked. The wasting of tissues pro- 

 gressed rapidly ; and in all that had any considerable exertion to undergo, 

 the unthrifty look of their skin, well defined muscles from wasting of 

 the fat around them, and the leanness of the upper part of the neck, 

 where the great ligament suspending the head coidd be felt, like a rigid 

 cord, constituted very decided and alarming symptoms. Persistence in 

 work resulted in a form of albuminuria ; sometimes diarrhea was readily 

 induced, and a purgative would so contribute to increase the weakness 

 and prostration that the animal would die or fall in a state of hectic. 

 All this disturbance in the functions of nutrition, assimilation, and 

 secretion ceased on changing the diet, administering astringents or 

 drachm doses of iodide of potassium for a few days, and following n[) 

 with a course of sulphate of iron, as a tonic, in very moderate (piantities, 

 not exceeding half a drachm or a drachm to a horse per day. 



