350 
and in smail quantity, ihe oe Ape constipation, colic, or some 
other form of indigestion. But, e other hand, if freely employed, 
and especially without dimitir pes ther sorts of grain, he found 
palsy to be a frequent sequel. Dr. lrving's cin further showed that 
ill-effects were more apt to occur in the ra ainy season, and that the 
great majority of sufferers were males, the proportion in the cases which 
came i his observation being 6:11 males to 0°59 females. 
During the years from 1829 to 1834 the grain formed, by a series of 
accidents, the chief of some of the eastern villages of Oudh, and, 
apparently,as a direct result many cas f sudden paralysis of the 
lower extremities ensued. The circumstances which gave rise to this 
described by Colonial Sleeman, from whose account the following may 
be quoted :— 
* In 1829 the wheat and other spring crops in this and the surround- 
ing villages were destroyed by a severe hail-storm ; in 1830 they were 
deficient from the want of seasonable rains, and in 1831 Ahey were 
destroyed by blight. During these three years the haséri, which, 
though not sown of itself, is left carelessly to grow among the wheat 
ich it from the blighted wheat fields, and subsisted upon its 
grain during that and the following year, giving the stalks and leaves 
onlyjto their cattle. In 1833 the sad effect of this food began to 
manifest themselves. The younger part of the population of this and 
the surtounding villages, from the age of 30 downwards, began to be 
deprived of. the use of their limbs below. tlie waist by paralytie Boke, 
in all cases sudden, but in some more severe than in gen bou 
years of 1833 and 18341 ; and tlg of hit have lost ihe use of their 
lower limbs entirely, and are unable to move. The youth of the 
"surrounding'villages, in which kasdért, from the same causes, formed the 
chief article of ‘food during the years 1831 and 1832, have suffered in 
different stages of the disease, imploring my advice and assistance under 
this dreadful visitation. Some of them were ver y fine looking young 
men of good caste and respectable famalies, and all stated that their pains 
and infirmities were confined entirely to the joints below the waist. 
They described the attack as coming on suddenly, often while the 
erson was asleep, and without vef warning symptoms wbatever, and 
-stated that a greater' proportion of the young men were attacked than of 
the young women.:' It is the prev ailing opinion of the natives through- 
out the eountry, that both horses and bullocks which have been much 
eat grass or 
- Again, Lisboa, commenting on this disease writes :—*' The subject 
was taken up by Dr. Kinloch Kirk in Upper Sind, A villager had 
btoiig ht Hy his. wife, about 30 years old, who was suffering from 
para lysis o of the. lower extremities. When questioned as to what he 
"thought the cause to be, the man replied, * It is from hasdri ; we are 
Y poor, and nè was ‘obliged to eat it for five months on end. 
