ENCEPHALITIS. 513 



duce rupture, tympanites, inflammatioa of the bowels or feet, or 

 intestinal apoplexy. 



All kinds of damp fodder soon become covered with rusts or 

 moulds. Amongst the former, the Puccinia graminis uredo, or 

 red rust, has induced disease in rabbits, characterised by gastric 

 irritation, vertigo, and convulsions (Frank). There are also black 

 moulds — microphytes — closely related to yeast plants, indeed 

 said to be a less advanced stage of the yeasts, and these are now 

 proved to cause the formation of ptomaines, having a deleterious 

 effect upon cattle, manifested by symptoms of depression, ab- 

 dominal pains, constipation, succeeded by a foetid and some- 

 times bloody diarrhoea, bellowing and groaning, some degree of 

 tympanites, and sometimes paralysis of the tongue and pharyn- 

 geal muscles, with continued movements of the jaws, salivation, 

 and cough. These latter symptoms are more particularly due to 

 black rust — Tilletia caries. These moulds and rusts are not 

 uncommon on ill-dried feeding cakes, and are undoubtedly a 

 source of much mischief. 



MORBID ANATOMY. 



From various dissections, very carefully made, it is found tliat 

 impaction of the stomach is but an occasional complication. In 

 many cases some degree of congestion of the villous coat has 

 been present, and this appearance led Blaine to conclude that 

 the disease was a specific form of gastritis ; but this is not an 

 invariable lesion, and is most probably as much induced by tlie 

 action of medicinal agents as by food. The stomach may be 

 quite empty ; sometimes it contains some amount of food, and 

 at other times it is impacted ; there is always a congested con- 

 dition of the lungs, as is tlie case in death by coma. The brain 

 and its membranes are invariably congested ; the former, after 

 removal, seems to be in a swollen condition ; the dura mater 

 seems stretched, and the convolutions appear broader and flatter 

 than natural, as if they had been pressed against the cranial 

 walls. The vessels of the pia mater are injected and tortuous, 

 and that membrane itself is easily lacerable, and may be 

 stripped from the surface of the convolutions without tearing the 

 cortical substance, which of itself looks darker than natural. 

 On cutting into the brain both grey and white matters are 



2 L 



