18 PATHOLOGY. 



that lioney-dew has been supposed to cause aphthous and other 

 affections. " Intelligent agriculturists in Saxony have remarked 

 this dew as a cause of epizootics, and the shepherds take the 

 precaution of leaving their crook on the grass in driving home 

 their flocks, and examining it in the morning before driving 

 them out again. If they observe the dew which has gathered 

 on the crook to be only water, the flocks may then be allowed 

 to pasture ; but if it resembles oil or honey, then they must 

 remain until the dew has evaporated." 



Geological formation and locality. — Mr. Eobertson, Kelso, in 

 his little work Hints to Stoclwwncrs, says — " The substrata on 

 which soils rest, and to which in part they owe their formation, 

 is always an important element in determining their character, 

 and one which remains undisturbed in its permanence, notwith- 

 standing cultivation, and the improvements of modern scientific 

 agriculture. From an acquaintance with the nature of this for- 

 mation, we can in many cases predict what will be the character 

 of the stock bred and reared on such lands, as also the dis- 

 eases to which they are more particularly liable, or from which 

 they are exempt. For example, it is a fact well known to the 

 majority of our sheep-breeders, that on certain soils, chiefly those 

 resting on the igneous rocks, sheep are liable to suffer from a 

 form of abdominal consumption, known as jnninj, and that no 

 system of treatment is so efficacious as their removal to soils 

 resting on the sandstone formation. There are also diseases 

 of particular structures of the animal body, as the bones and 

 nervous system — enzootic — that is, confined to circumscribed 

 districts of country, which seem to owe their origin to the redvm- 

 dancy or absence in the soil, and materials grown thereon, of 

 certain organic or inorganic materials. These diseases are always 

 difficult of prevention, when only methods of cultivation, or 

 systems of folding the animals on these lands, are adopted. 

 They would require to have access to those situations known to 

 be dangerous only at particular periods, and to have what food 

 is given them from such soils supplemented by others of a very 

 different nature." 



In several parts of Scotland, it is well known that stock suffer 

 to an enormous extent in certain pastures during spring, or until 

 the appearance of the white clover. It is difficult to account 

 for this, unless by the supposition that, owing to the geological 



