50 i 
INDIAN VETERINARY DEPARTMENT. 
cability. Its stimulating effects must surpass any other 
application. This disease is evidently, as Mr. Western 
remarks, essentially a disease of debility, and owns a con- 
stitutional origin. Under these circumstances, I do not 
look upon it as in any way contagious by flies or other means. 
You must have the constitutional local causes to produce 
the local effects. Much nonsense has been written and 
handed down, about the recurrence and virulence of the 
disease. Of course, where the exciting cause — the con- 
tinued humid atmosphere — most prevails, as in low districts, 
there the disease will preponderate, and of course the 
animal whose laxity of constitution predisposed him one 
year, will be more prone, from such causes, to future 
attack on the recurrence of the exciting cause ; and, d, fortiori , 
old and debilitated animals will suffer more than young ones. 
I have had some bad cases in hand, both down country and 
up here, and I have found the disease yield to the indicated 
treatment. I have also seen many bad cases arrested in 
quick time, in Calcutta, under the decisive and happy tact 
and treatment of Mr. Western. 
We have another disease here, which, as yet, I have not seen 
touched upon by any of your correspondents. It is one of much 
interest, and affords scope for much pathological inquiry and 
discussion. The disease is an epidemic, and from having first 
made its appearance, or come under notice at the station of 
Loodianah, is known commonly as the Loodianah disease. 
In the autumn of 1851, I was ordered up in all haste to a 
troop of Horse Artillery, at Loodianah, among the horses of 
which this disease had broken out, carrying off about twenty 
in the space of a week or so. I was anxious, of course, to 
obtain from my professional brethren, of longer standing in 
the service, some pathological account of this epidemic, or 
rather endemic, as it was supposed to be confined to only 
certain confines or parts of India. On my way up county, 
therefore, I sought the views and opinions of others on the 
subject, and w 7 as shown a copy of a Report or Reports on 
this disease, which had emanated from the Adjutant-General’s 
office. And here was indeed, most markedly, a proof of the 
w ant of a head, or what Mr. Western very justly styles a 
focal point, from which the recurrent spring of accumulated 
information should flow. A report and opinion was called 
for by the Adjutant-General’s office on this disease, from 
certain veterinary surgeons in the Upper Provinces, wffio 
might have been supposed to have seen the disease in 
question. The answering a letter, or w-riting to order, on 
such a subject, to an unprofessional quarter, you may imagine 
