502 INDIAN VETERINARY DEPARTMENT. 
the country and service in which he has already done so much 
in his capacity as a veterinary surgeon, he might perhaps be 
induced to finish his career by putting us on a more satis- 
factory footing to ourselves, and a more useful one to our 
government. In our present unrepresented and isolated 
condition, we can do little to advance our professional interests 
or our usefulness to the service we belong to, we can only do 
our best under the circumstances we are placed in. And I 
am afraid the position of most of us is but too much like the 
ambiguous one of a certain plethoric parochial functionary, 
who, on being asked by a committee of the reform movement 
to explain what constituted his duties, replied, “ I fills my 
situation, and I draws my pay.” 
Having already, I fear, entered at too great a length into our 
peculiar affairs and position in this country, I will turn to a 
subject likely to be more interesting to us as a body. Several 
interesting articles have appeared from time to time from Mr. 
Hodgson and others on the diseases peculiar to horse-flesh 
in this country. The one known as bursauttee has come in 
— if not for its pathological description — at any rate for its 
treatment. You will, I am sure, agree with me in thinking 
that we should have a pathological classification and defini- 
tion of any disease before the treatment can be understood 
or subscribed to : without this all is empirical. The disease 
known here as bursauttee consists, primarily, of eruption 
and desquamation of the cuticle, followed by ulceration, 
always spreading, and mostly phagedenic. Extremities and 
parts furthest removed from the centre of circulation, such 
as the commissures of the lips, fetlocks, glans penis, &c., are 
the parts generally involved, though occasionally it is found 
pervading the body. The time of its development is gene- 
rally the autumnal season, when we all know many predis- 
posing causes exist to bring about laxity and debility of both 
the circulation and the skin. The autumnal preparation for 
moulting, or acquiring the winter coat, is everywhere 
attended by its debilitating effects ; and the system gene- 
rally has been relaxed and taxed by the heat and waste of 
summer. Here, especially, the skin is taxed and debilitated 
to the utmost. We bipeds are but too fully aware of such 
a state of things. Never could I have dreamed of the full 
extent of the excretory powers of the skin which I have ex- 
perienced in this country. Well may an old Indian be said 
to be dried up at last! Now the horse’s skin having been 
so severely taxed and relaxed through the summer, and the 
system debilitated, then comes the further febrile and debili- 
tating process attending his moulting; the rains now setting 
