1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



259 



kind. In short, health and disease are so im- 



[)erceptibly merged into each other that the 

 ine of demarcation cannot be drawn with pre- 

 cision. The same is true of other depart- 

 ments of knowledge. It is not easy, for ex- 

 ample, to settle the boundaries of the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms, and yet there is 

 rarely any practical embarrassment in distin- 

 guishing an animal from a vegetable. So 

 with regard to health, if an important disease 

 of any kind exists, the fact of its existence is, 

 in most cases, sufficiently obvious. 



A disease is called organic when some 

 change of structure or of composition has 

 taken place in one or more of the organs, and 

 functional when only the function or action of 

 an organ or of organs is deranged or sus- 

 pended. The same disease may be either 

 acute, subacute or chronic. A disease is acute 

 •when it has a certain degree of intensity, and 

 and runs a rapid career. As a general rule, 

 persons suffering from acute disease are con- 

 fined to their beds. A subacute disease has 

 less intensity, does not compel the patient to 

 keep his bed, and does not always prevent 

 him from being about, or even pursuing his 

 usual occupation. A chronic disease is one 

 which is subacute in its character, slow in 

 its progress, and protracted in its continuance. 

 Again, diseases are either constitutional or 

 local. A constitutional disease is one in which 

 several or all of the organs are affected, and in 

 ■which the fluids of the body are more or less 

 depraved. A local disease is one which is 

 seated in a particular organ, and does not ne- 

 cessarily affect the general system. 



Another division of diseases is one which 

 has reference to the manner of their occur- 

 rence. Thus, diseases which affect many per- 

 sons at the same time are called epidemic 

 diseases ; those which are peculiar to the inhab- 

 itants of particular countries or sections of 

 country are called endemic diseases ; and those 

 ■which arise from occasional causes, as cold, 

 heat, fatigue, &c., are called sporadic dis- 

 eases. Diseases which are propagated by the 

 miasm or effluvia emitted from the bodies of 

 persons affected with the same disease are 

 called infectious, and those which are com- 

 municated from one person to another, by 

 contact, are called contagious. Some diseases 

 are both infectious and contagious. Hooping 

 cough, measles, &c., are infectious; itch, sy- 

 phylis, &c., are contagious, and small pox is 

 both infectious and contagious. 



There was formerly much discussion among 

 medical men relative to the seat or starting 

 point of disease. Some held that in all gen- 

 eral or constitutional diseases, the primary 

 affection is in the solids of the body, — these 

 were termed solidists. Others contended that 

 in such diseases the fluids are pi imarily af- 

 fected, and such were called humoralists, or 

 advocates of the humoral pathology. The 

 modern and, doubtless, the true doctrine ia 



that in all constitutional diseases, both solids 

 and fluids are affected, and that either may 

 be the seat of the first morbid action. 



The causes of disease will be the subject of 

 our next article. 



An Experuient ix Curing Hay. — Last 

 summer I took four men and went into a piece 

 of good herdsgrass and clover, wLien it was 

 about fit to cut, and just after the dew was off. 

 I mowed about four tons. In three and a 

 half hours it was stowed away in a space of 

 twelve by twenty-four feet, on scaffold. On 

 two sides it was double boarded, on one end 

 was a mow of hay, on the front or floor side, 

 it was exposed to the air ; on the bottom and 

 top was put about one foot of swale hay that 

 was worth about two-ihirds of the value of 

 good hay. The result was I lost all the good 

 hay, and it would have been wonh sixty dol- 

 lars. The swale hay was to take up the 

 moisture, as I supposed. It steamed from 

 internal heat for about four months, and when 

 I took it out it was a mass of white useless 

 stuff, completely burnt up. The a&hes filled 

 the barn every time that I pitched it over. 

 Neither cattle nor sheep would eat it, except a 

 little that was around the sides next to the 

 barn, and on the floor side. The mow end 

 was just as bad as that in the middle. This 

 satisfies me that it is an impossibility to have 

 good hay without first making it in the sun 

 and air. — P. Dinsmore, in Maine Farmer. 



Club Root in Cabbage. — In a letter to 

 the New York Farmers' Club, G. Pitts, 

 Honeoye, N. Y., attributes the disease to "a 

 small white maggot that eats off the rootlets 

 of the plant, thus preventing nourishment." 

 He destroyed the maggo' by removing the sur- 

 face earth and sprinkling on a little dry cop- 

 peras and replacing the loose soil. The plant 

 soon revived, the heads developed as usual, 

 and he has been troubled no more with the 

 club-rooted cabbage. Philemon Farrell, 

 Greenfield, N. Y., also writes that he destroys 

 the maggot by the use of strong pork or fish 

 brine. When he discovers the cabbage affect- 

 ed he makes a saucer-shaped hill about the 

 plant and turns from a gill to a half pint of 

 brine upon the roots, and rarely has to make 

 a second application. 



About Manures — Manure is never so 

 valuable as when it is fresh. It then holds in 

 association not only all the fixed soluble sub- 

 stances natural to the solid excrement, but 

 much that is of great value, found only in the 

 liquid. It is in a condition to quickly under- 

 go chemical change, and the ga»eous, ammo- 

 niacal products secured are double those re- 

 sulting from that which has been weathered in 

 a heap, out of doors for several months. — Dos- 

 ton Journal of Chemistry. 



