THE EPIDEMIC IN STOCK. 
696 
In our last report, published March 13th, as a Supplement to 
the Government Gazette of March 11th, we stated that we had 
invariably found the spleen enlarged, gorged with dark purple 
blood to such an extent as sometimes to increase its weight 
from one and a half or two pounds, which is the natural ave- 
rage, up to twelve and even to twenty pounds. We also inva- 
riably found marks of inflammation in the shape of specks, 
spots, and patches, and ulcers prevailing more or less through- 
out the inner or mucous coat of the stomach and intestines. In 
all cases the blood presented a diseased appearance, being dark 
purple coloured, thick, and not coagulating in any part of the 
body. Other appearances of disease were observed, but they 
were not invariable, except that in sheep we always found 
some bloody urine in the bladder, and evidence of inflammation 
in the kidneys. 
Our next inquiry was as to the origin or cause of the disease. 
We ascertained that it had first made its appearance amongst 
cattle and horses not far from Liverpool, and that it had spread 
thence, as from a nucleus, to other parts of the county of Cum- 
berland, to which district it seemed, until ver} r lately, to be 
almost entirely confined ; that wherever one died, others died 
shortly afterwards ; and that till within the last year and a half 
sheep seemed to be exempt from its attack. 
From the first appearance of the disease up to the present 
time, it has been attributed to various causes — to over driving, 
to hot weather, to bad feed, to bad water, to want of salt, to 
want of cultivated grasses ; and it is a very general opinion 
that some poisonous plant is the sole cause of it. 
But all our inquiries have failed to trace the disease to any 
of these causes ; and it is our opinion that, whatever tendency 
any of them may have to predispose to disease, they have no 
power to produce it in this particular form. 
To one source, and to one source only, have we been able to 
trace it, and that is to contagion. We hold it to be established 
beyond doubt, that the sound get the disease from the unsound, 
either alive or dead ; but whether it is communicated by the 
breath, or by contact with the secretions or excretions, we have 
not been able to discover. But the instances of disease appear- 
ing amongst the sound soon after contact with the unsound are 
very numerous and well authenticated. Some of them have 
been the result of direct experiments to try the fact; others 
have been the result of accident ; but all have tended to prove 
the fact. In three instances we have produced the disease in 
sheep by inoculation with blood taken from subjects that had 
died of it. Even the ground on which the dead body of a 
