THE OX AND THE DAIRY. 43 



on bad hay during the winter. " In cows that have died of 

 this disorder we almost always find an accumulation of the 

 fibrous parts of hay, in the third or foliated stomach, com- 

 pressed into thin cakes, and matted together. The cuticular 

 coat of the leaves of the stomach generally separates with 

 those cakes of matted fibres, and the muscular coat is found 

 weakened and distended." 



There is considerable variety in the symptoms of this 

 malady. Sometimes the urine is but slightly altered, some- 

 times it is of a deep yellowish red ; at other times brown and 

 turbid, and even of a blackish tint. When the latter is the 

 case, it is termed black water. We can easily conceive that, 

 from the continued bilious irritation of the kidneys, their 

 minute vessels may at length begin to pour out blood ; but, 

 granting this to be the case, we are not to attribute the seat 

 of the disease to these great excretory organs they are pas- 

 sive sufferers only; we might as well regard the yellowness of 

 the conjunctiva as indicative of disease of the eye. We need 

 not wonder that, from the same cause, there is often distressing 

 strangury, nor that dysentery should precede obstinate con- 

 stipation of the bowels. 



Practitioners, though they mostly agree as to the chief 

 organs affected during the progress of the disease called red 

 water, differ in their opinion as to its exciting cause : each 

 judges from his own experience. Some, for example, attribute 

 it to the noxious herbage of low undrained swampy lands ; 

 and there is no doubt that in such situations it is often preva- 

 lent. Others consider that it is of most frequent occurrence 

 in dry and hilly districts, where little grass and less water is 

 to be obtained during a hot summer, and instance localities of 

 this description where it rages like an epidemic : we believe 

 that they also are correct. Peat and moss lands have been 

 known to produce this disease. It will result from feeding 

 on the budding leaves of copses in spring, and the decaying 

 leaves in autumn ; and at these two seasons of the year it 

 is most especially prevalent. A diet of bad hay during the 

 winter will cause it ; so will a sudden change of pasturage. 

 The disease often occurs in cows after calving, perhaps from a 

 change of diet, or some mismanagement; change of pasturage, 

 from a stony or flinty soil to a heavy clay soil, has been known 

 to cause it. It sometimes ravages a farm ; while in the next, 

 divided from the other only by hedgerows, it is unknown. Of 

 two adjoining fields, one may be dangerous the other safe; 



