DENTITION AND DENTAL DISEASES 267 



399. Compound Cakes and Meals. — While believing in a 

 mixed food, I do not advocate the purchase of prepared fancy-named 

 mixtures. The articles used in their composition may be of an 

 inferior, mouldy, or doubtful character. There is nothing equal to 

 the simple cakes, crushed and mixed with maize, meal, or home- 

 grown ground corn, and, if necessary, flavoured with powdered locust 

 bean or fenugreek. If mixed foods are wanted, the best way is to 

 buy the materials and mix them to your own satisfaction. It is 

 important, however, to be careful not to overbalance the materials. 

 One part of albuminous or nitrogenous matter to four or five fat- 

 forming matter is the most suitable mixture for feeding cattle. I 

 have seen evil effects follow the consumption of badly-balanced 

 foods. In buying fancy compound mixtures care is necessary, for 

 in large seaports such as London, Hull, Liverpool, Leith, etc., there 

 is always a great amount of damaged grain, corn, cakes, etc. These 

 are sold by auction, and have to be placed somewhere. There are 

 first, second, and third-class damaged : the first and second might 

 be dressed and sold as a good, sound article ; the third-class is 

 assorted, ground, and made up into compound mixtures, flavoured 

 with aromatics, and sold on the market as first-class feeding cakes 

 and meals. I have every reason to believe that these sorts of feeding 

 stuffs are largely responsible for many of the outbreaks of disease 

 amongst cattle and pigs. As to whether the bacillus of anthrax is 

 preserved in cotton-seed cakes, even after they have been subjected 

 to heat and high pressure, I would not offer any definite opinion, but 

 it is within my knowledge that in wool shoddy which had been 

 subjected to great friction and heat in the polishing of tin plates no 

 fewer than sixty distinct species of foreign plants were found growing 

 on the refuse heap where it was collected. If such a variety of 

 vegetable life could be found in wool shoddy after the friction to which 

 it had been subjected, I do not see why the bacillus of anthrax, 

 if it were in the woolly film attached to the cotton seed at all, might 

 not survive the crushing {par. 327). The meal of the Indian pea> 

 already referred to, as well as that of castor oil beans, has been found 

 mixed in these compound cakes and meals, which, when used, have 

 had fatal effects on both cows and sheep I am afraid that, in many 



