Cryptogamic Poisoning in Solipeds. 297 



oidium aurantiacum affect the nervous system as well, The 

 smuts (ustilago) and ergots (claviceps purpurea) vary consider- 

 ably in their potency according to the conditions of their growth 

 and the stage of their development, yet experiment has shown a 

 special action on the vasomotor nerves leading to nervous dis- 

 orders, circulatory troubles, and trophic disease. In connection 

 with ustilago maidis (corn smut) there are usually found bac- 

 teria, such as bacillus maidis and bacillus mesentericusfuscus, 

 and the combined products of these and the ustilago have been 

 studied by Eombroso, Dupre and Erba. These observers isolated 

 a red oil with the tetanizing action of strychnia, and oleo- resinous 

 substances having bases which they named maisine and pellag- 

 rozeine, and which had a paralytic action on the nerve centres. 

 Pellizi and Tirelli cultivated the bacteria of damaged maize and 

 found that the sterilized cultures, introduced into rabbits hypo- 

 dermically or intravenously caused muscular jerking, exaggera- 

 tion of the reflexes, tetanic spasms and paralysis which lasted 

 for fifteen days after the injection. This is exactly in line with 

 the causation of contagious bacteridian diseases in which the 

 ptomaines and toxins are, as a rule, the immediate pathogenic 

 factors. 



Butler, Nesom and others have shown that frequent, and 

 widely extended epizootics of staggers, in horses and mules, in 

 the Southern states, are caused by feeding spoiled western corn 

 which is sold as fit for stock only. The losses are estimated at 

 tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. 



CRYPTOGAMIC POISONING IN SOUPEDS. 



Prominent symptoms, asthenia and vertigo. Vary with cryptogam, 

 merge into zymotic diseases. Causes : grain harvested damp and moulded, 

 bluish or greenish, hay greenish white, brown or black, clover reddish, 

 musty fodder and diuresis, indigestion, gastric intestinal and systemic 

 paresis, somnolence, delirium. Rusts, spring and summer, their evolution. 

 Bunt, smut, produce fever and paralysis, spasms, abortions and dry gan- 

 grene, buccal erosions ; evolution of ergot, honey dew on leguminous plants 

 causing skin disease, bacterial ferments, diplococcus, streptococcus from 

 foul water, causing enteritis. Symptoms: adynamic, dullness, blunted 

 sense, pendent head, ears, eyelids, congested, yellow, ecchymosed con- 



