PORT PIRIE HORSE DISEASE. 473 



failed entirely to locate a single animal of the kind. Tlie few 

 persons who had, so they said, seen " salted " horses, informed me 

 that these animals present a dejected and debilitated appearance ; 

 that the skin about their head and neck is unusually loose and 

 wrinMed; and that they are liable to relapses of the disease, 

 though in a milder form. Mr. Wiltshire, late Colonial Veterinary 

 Surgeon of Natal, told me that " salted " horses invariably die 

 from horse-sickness, if they be allowed to live long enough. A 

 photograph of a supposed " salted " horse, shows that the hair of 

 his mane and forelock stick out in a particularly rough arid dis- 

 ordered manner, so that it would be impossible to have the mane 

 lie on one side or the forelock to fall straight down. I have 

 always heard that " salted " horses have this peculiarity of the 

 mane, forelock-, and tail. As far as I can learn, the only peculiarity 

 of serum-salted horses is that they are subject at much later and 

 irregular periods to attacks of fever. Such attacks have no 

 relation to fresh infection, as they have been found to occur in 

 all salted horses kept imder close observation in the stable. The 

 attacks vary greatly both in degree and duration; they may last 

 for one day, or may extend over as many as six days. I am 

 inclined to think that the " salted " horses of popular South 

 African repute are those suffering from the disease communicated 

 by the tsetse fly (p. 530). 



Much interesting information on horse-sickness is to be found 

 in " The Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics " for 

 March, September, and December, 1900, and June and September, 

 1901. 



Port Pirie Horse Disease. 



In I90I, a disease unknown in Australia up to that time, 

 attacked a large number of horses at Port Pirie, South Australia, 

 with the result of many deaths. At first the malady was supposed 

 to be due to lead poisoning, but that idea was conclusively dis- 

 proved by Dr. Ramsay Smith, M.B., CM., B.So. (Chairman of the 

 Central Board of Health, Adelaide), who made an elaborate inves- 

 tigation into the nature of this disease. The conclusions arrived 

 at by him are as follows : — " The disease as manifested in the 

 lungs of horses at Port Pirie is in no way distinguishable from 

 South African horse-sickness, which shows .such well-marked 

 aggregation of naked eye and microscopical appearances as marks 

 it off from all known diseases. The disease differs from the most 

 common forms of South African horse-sickness in so far as it is 

 more chronic and is associated with less fever and less dropsy of 

 the heart-sac and of the pleural cavities." A two-year-old filly 



