DISEASES OF THE GLANDS. 121 



water from the eyes. All the animals of the higher types of 

 organism have an organ answering this purpose. Nature 

 supplies to all these a watery secretion, to wash the eye and 

 keep it moist, and when this fluid has performed its office, it 

 passes off through this little duct into the nose. In the horse 

 and the mule, the lacrymal tube has its outlet into the nose 

 situated much lower down than in any other animal, and, in 

 the former especially, may be seen very plainly. 



"When the horse eats the worm-eaten corn we have de- 

 scribed, he snuffs the excrementory dust upon it up his nose, 

 and it sometimes lodges in these little openings. Its poison- 

 ous qualities cause them to swell and fester, from which they 

 shortly become closed, so that the water from the eyes can 

 not be discharged. These ducts communicate with the nasal 

 cavities of the head, which, in like manner, become filled 

 with the poisonous retained water. They remain" not long 

 in this condition before disease and inflammation set in ; the 

 surrounding parts are next involved ; finally, the optic nerve — 

 the nerve of the eye — becomes affected, and at once blindness 

 and staggering begin. The brain and the whole head par- 

 take of the rapidly-spreading derangement, and presently 

 the stomach also, with the entire line of the intestinal canal. 

 The dreadful virus affects every vital organ, and nearly every 

 part of the body. It is a strange and peculiar poison, equally 

 so in its nature and effect. 



That climate and a variety of unfavorable circumstances, 

 may greatly aggravate the disease, is undoubted. We are 

 fully satisfied, however, that blind staggers arises from an 

 inflamed condition of the optic nerve of the eye, the inflam- 

 mation being produced by the worm excrement, which finds 

 its way into the nose, as already stated, and which differs 

 materially from any commonly found upon the corn further 

 north. 



Numerous examinations of the optic nerve, made imme- 

 diately after death from this disease, showed it to be in a 

 dreadfully inflamed condition, and already exhibiting signs 

 of decomposition. No traces of disease were discovered in 



