120 RINDERPEST. 



ganic, are in excess, or in deficient supply, their harmonious 

 motions are disturbed, and the charm of vital play and 

 healthy action is broken. The elements, which by too large 

 supply in the first instance, or by the deficiency of their 

 coordinates, and in the effort of nature to maintain a just 

 equilibrium become so, must remain as clogs upon vital 

 action, until they are thrown off, or agencies employed to 

 restore the balance. And it is in this view that Liebig, in 

 commenting on the condition of those animals which in the 

 experiments of Boussingault were deprived of salt for a 

 twelvemonth, is both convincing and eloquent, when he says 

 that their bodies were, 



*' in regard to disease, like a fireplace, heaped with most inflammable 

 fuel, which only requires a spark in order to burst into flame and be 

 consumed." 



If the inquiry should now be deemed useless or visionary, 

 whether those animals who succumbed so easily to the Pest 

 had been denied or not a proper modicum of salt ; or whether 

 this agent was of any specific worth in the treatment of the 

 murrains of the 17th and 18th centuries;* one conclusion will 

 not be gainsaid, that in all future prophylactic and remedial 

 treatment of the Pest, salt should be largely supplied in the 

 food, and in the absence of other remedies might be relied 

 upon as palliative if not curative.f 



We shall embrace under the general division in which we 

 have placed the chloride of sodium, two other agents, although 

 we are far from insisting that either exists so largely as a 

 constituent of the blood-elements, or has been traced as such ; 

 or that the latter has any existence in these elements except 

 by conversion or as a product of disease. And in order that 

 we may not give their consideration an undue prejudice, by 

 reason of the classification we have previously made, we will 



 See page 66 of this Report, and note. 



+ A8 illustrative of the frequent a<;reement of the tentative experiences of instinct In our race, 

 and the deliberate conclusions of men of science it is not improper here to notice the fact that 

 the Indians of this Continent, whose nomad life impelled them to the chase for the sustenance of 

 life, and limited their supply of food to that mostly deficient in salt, should have upcd salt mic- 

 cesfuUy as a cure for the bite of the rattlesnake. Sequel to Ist Report, p. 17. See also cases of 

 cure by this agent, in Trans, of the Royal Soc, Vol. XII of Abridgement, p. 844 ; with white 

 oak bark and vinegar, Vol. IX, p. 230. 



