142 Veterinary Medicine. 



A second source is in lead paints used about farms and the 

 scrapings of paint pots thrown out with manure and spread 

 upon the fields. These lead combinations will last for years in the 

 soil or on the surface, being plowed under one year and turned up 

 again the next when the occasion of their presence has been 

 completely forgotten. In one case I found the red lead paint 

 marked by the tongues of cattle at the back of an abandoned 

 cottage the fence around which had been broken down. In 

 another the scrapings were found in an orchard which had been 

 near and convenient for throwing them out. In the third case a 

 paint can hung on the branch of an apple tree, well out of the 

 way of the stock as the owner fondly supposed, showed in its 

 contents the marking of the barbed tongues of the cattle. In 

 a fourth case a barrel of paint was set under the barn where 

 there was not height enough to admit the matured cattle, 

 but it bore the marks of licking by the young stock, and they 

 alone died but in such numbers that the owner concluded 

 it must be the "Rinderpest." 



The lead packing from the joints of pumps, engines and other 

 machinery, thrown away around works and mines, is a common 

 source of the trouble. I once found large quantities in the gas- 

 tric contents of cows that had died around a coal mine in 

 Ayrshire, Scotland. 



Sheet lead — tea-chest lead — is another common source of the 

 poison. This is thrown out, scattered with the manure on the field, 

 and will resist the elements for years but dissolves when taken 

 into the acid stomach of the animal. 



The spray from bullets in the vicinity of rifle butts is another 

 common cause of the poisoning. 



In one instance I have seen a cow poisoned by eating some lead- 

 impregnated wall paper which had been carelessly left in the 

 stable. 



Less frequently the poisoning comes from drinking water car- 

 ried in leaden pipes, or left to stand in a leaden cistern. The 

 softest waters — rain, snow, distilled water — are the most liable to 

 this impregnation. The hard waters containing carbonates, sul- 

 phates or phosphates, tend to be decomposed, the acid uniting 

 with the lead to form comparatively insoluble carbonates, sul- 

 phates or phosphates of lead, which protect the subjacent lead 



