2i 4 VETERINARY LECTURES 



a variety of conditions. For instance, the process of fermenting 

 hay-chop, if not properly and carefully carried out, my experience 

 shows to be very dangerous. This process consists of saturating 

 chopped hay with cold water, or cold water and treacle, mixing it 

 with sliced turnips, and letting the mixture lie until fermented — that is, 

 until the starchy matters have been converted into their sugary form. 

 Should this, however, be carried too far — viz., through the sugary to 

 the acetous stage (and this is easily done by leaving some of the old 

 chop and mixing it with the new — a little leaven leaveneth the whole 

 lump)— and the cattle be fed on this for any length of time— a fortnight, 

 or even less— bad results generally follow, more particularly if some 

 food rich in nitrogen, such as decorticated cotton cake, has been added 

 to the mixture. I have, on several occasions, known anthrax to have 

 followed this method of preparing the food and feeding, and, on 

 changing the food to a simple diet, the malady was always arrested. 

 On other occasions anthrax followed the feeding of cattle with 

 overmacerated cummings, left too long exposed to the action of the 

 atmosphere, when they were rendered as sour as vinegar. Whether 

 the method of manipulating the food renders it into such a condition 

 that when eaten it has some peculiar action on the fluids and solids 

 of the body, whereby they are converted into a suitable pabulum, or 

 seed-bed, favourable for the entrance and development of the spores 

 of the disease, or whether the spores are in the foods and are 

 roused into activity by the methods of preparation, I am unable to 

 say. Again, on the other hand, several outbreaks have also occurred 

 in my district on undrained pasture-lands. On one occasion, in 

 1862, the complaint broke out amongst twenty-five two-year-old 

 short-horn heifers, of which six died in two days, and they were only 

 ailing from two to four hours ; the remaining nineteen were removed 

 to another pasture, and each one got a dose of medicine, composed 

 of 6 ounces each of common salt and Epsom salts and 2 ounces of 

 ginger in 1 quart of thin gruel. A few days after sixteen of the 

 heifers took red-water, but they all eventually did well, and the disease 

 spread no further. The land on which this outbreak of anthrax 

 occurred had been noted for generations as a hot-bed for red-water in 

 cattle. For twelve years after red-water was prevalent, but no anthrax. 



