Автом. Тһе Chemistry of Bush Sickness in Ruminants. 723 
weight of the species, (b) for the increased amount of iron required as shown 
by the iron content of the milk of the species, (c) for the allowance 
early summer is much lower than that of the portion found in autumn. 
It is in the spring and early summer that bush sickness is prevalent. 
Finally, numerous and long-continued feeding experiments on cattle, 
and medicinal treatments, have demonstrated conclusively that, although 
many substances may alleviate or postpone the onset of sympto h 
sickness, there is only one which will bring an animal back to health when 
badly affected, the food being unchanged. That substance is a soluble 
salt of iron, the best of all for the purpose being the double citrate of iron 
and ammonium, the ferri ammon. cit. of the druggist. 
t is to be regretted that the exact iron requirement of ruminants 
the pasture, the soil, and the animal, compared with normal specimens ; 
the medicinal means by which the animal may be restored to health; the 
manurial means by which the pasture may be rendered capable of growing 
healthy animals ; and, lastly, by the symptoms exhibited by the sick and 
. In these cases, owing to the roximity of soil and pasture of 
higher iron content, and the feeding of supplementary fodder crops in winter, 
the effects are not likely to be so serious as in those pumice lands where 
these conditions do not obtain. Further, in at least three widely separated 
countries outside New Zealand a nutrition disease exactly similar to bush 
sickness develops, and the writer predicts that it will be found that the 
cause is in each case the same—viz., iron starvation. These external areas 
are—(1) In King Island, off the coast of Tasmania, in sandy soil, where the 
disease is known as “ coast disease "; (2) in the Kedong Valley, Nairobi, 
ase in sheep known as “ pining,” “ vinquish,” or * daising," occurs 
on soil derived from porphyritic rock. 
