Investigations in 1890 for the Royal Agricultural Society. 151 
sterilised. The air is tlien slowly exhausted through the orifices at c c, and 
replaced by a current which finds entrance at b ; the organisms in this cur- 
rent gravitate and stick to the layer of gelatine on the bottom of the jar, and 
from this, when they have grown into colonies, they may be transferred to 
tubes for further observation, &c.' 
From the foregoing description some idea of the equipment of, and 
of the laborious and tedious nature of the work carried on in, this 
department may be formed. Of course it is quite impossible in 
the short time that has elapsed since the laboratory was completed 
to furnish any results of the investigations which are at present 
being conducted ; but, as might be expected, contagious pleuro- 
pneumonia has received a good deal of attention, and more especially 
a form of it wherein the lungs of the animals pj'esented rather 
different appearances to those usually seen in such cases. Tubercu- 
losis, anthrax, swine-fever, foot-rot in sheep, various morbid 
grovrths (tumours), and lunj^s of sheep affected with parasites have 
been examined. 
Numerous morbid specimens have been received during the time 
the laboratories have been opened, and there is good reason to 
believe that the extent of the means of research will not be in excess 
of the demands which will be made upon them in the immediate 
future. 
Inquiries into Outbreaks of Disease among Farm Stock. 
On January 18 a visit was made to Hereford in reference to a 
cow suffering from chronic disease of the stomach and liver. The 
chief features of the case were general weakness, loss of appetite, pro- 
gressive wasting, and suspended rumination, with other symptoms of 
disordered digestion. The animal died, and post-mortem examina- 
tion revealed an enlarged and disorganised liver and an atrophied 
and much dilated state of the walls of the rumen. 
At the request of a farmer residing near Southminster, an 
inquiry was instituted into an outbreak of anthrax in a flock of 
ewes. In tlie course of the inquiry it transpired that since 1886 
several horses and pigs had died suddenly after being turned into a 
certain pasture on the farm, and from the description given of 
the symptoms and post-mortem examinations there was no doubt 
that the losses sustained were due to some form of blood-poison- 
ing. In one or two instances the spleen was noticed to be con- 
sidei-ably enlarged, and the lesions generally were such as to de- 
note anthrax. The water supply to the suspected pastures is 
furnished by a brook into which, it is said, surface -drainage is re- 
ceived from adjacent fields, which from time to time are manured 
' I have to thank Dr. Noel Paton and the Laboratory Committee of the 
Koyal College of Physicians of Edinburgh for placing at my disposal the blocks 
from •which figs. 1, 2, and 4 have been produced, and Messrs. Swift & Son for 
the block for fig. 3.— G. T. B. 
