DISEASES OF THE GLANDS. 119 



sections. These investigations were necessarily pursued with- 

 out much light or aid from others. The best descriptions 

 given of it by recognized authorities in veterinary science, 

 fell far below the dreadful developments of the malady as 

 they were presented to the author's observation almost daily. 

 The people in the regions where it prevailed had gained a 

 partial knowledge of its real cause and location ; but their 

 modes of treatment were barbarous in the extreme, and by 

 no means effective. Authors disagreed among themselves in 

 not a few points of the most essential character, and hardly 

 one of them even approximated to a true description of the 

 blind staggers of the South. The name staggers had a va- 

 riety of vague and perplexing applications in their accounts. 

 Some spoke of the disease as heart staggers ; others described 

 stomach staggers, brain staggers, sleepy staggers, and mad 

 staggers, each reasoning from effect rather than cause. 



Several writers have advanced the opinion that the disease 

 is caused by the horse eating the spiders' webs on the grass, 

 in the morning, when wet with dew. Unfortunately for this 

 theory, however, horses that are kept in the stable are found 

 to be more subject to it than those which run in pasture. 

 Besides this, in some parts of Mississippi, where its ravages 

 have been as bad as in any part of the whole South, there 

 are no such spiders' webs. Still further, it frequently rages 

 in the winter, when there is neither grass in the pastures, 

 nor spiders to spread their webs upon it. 



Equally absurd is the theory that a disease of so dreadful 

 a type — extending its ravages over almost one-half of our 

 country, well-nigh equaling in extent, as also in malignity, 

 that dreadful scourge cholera, attacking not only horses, 

 mules, jacks, and even hogs alike, but those of all ages and 

 conditions — is the result of over-eating, of a diseased stomach. 



The various theories advanced by different authors seem to 

 us to be but lame attempts to explain what they do not un- 

 derstand. The people of the affected localities, we found, 

 had gained some knowledge of the cause of the disease, and 

 the parts particularly affected; and this knowledge was of 



