INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
621 
but many of the most obstinate maladies which affect man- 
kind are due to the growth and propagation of some of the 
lowest species of plants. It is now weli known that many 
varieties of skin-disease, especially the various forms of ring- 
worm, are associated with the growth of microscopic fungi. 
The botanist can now claim many of the lower forms of 
beings, which until very recently have been classed in the 
animal kingdom. The power of locomotion, which was 
formerly considered as one of the distinctive characters of 
animals, is well known to exist throughout whole tribes of 
the lower plants, and even the active and rapidly moving 
volvox globator , by the discoveries of Williamson, Carpenter, 
Busk, and others, has within the last few years been clearly 
proved to belong to the vegetable and not to the animal 
kingdom.” 
Nor should plants be studied only in their healthy or na- 
tural state by the veterinary surgeon, but also when they 
are affected with disease; for who can assert that many 
maladies are not by this means produced in animals? This 
we do know, that ergotized grasses have caused abortion in 
cows ; and numerous instances are on record of a peculiar 
conditional state of the vegetable giving rise to effects alto- 
gether different from the specific action that would have 
otherwise taken place. 
Under this head I may be permitted to quote from Gil- 
bert Burnettes 4 Outlines of Botany/ Speaking of the 
Cicuta virosa or Cow-bane , he says: “ It is a very poisonous 
plant to men and some animals, such as kine; although 
others, such as horses, sheep, and goats, feed on it with im- 
punity. In the moist pastures of Sweden, it used to occa- 
sion a yearly plague amongst horned cattle, until the cause 
was pointed out and a preventive suggested by Linnaeus. 
When full grown, the odour is so strong that the cows avoid 
it, but when young, the smell is so faint that they eat it in- 
discriminately with the other herbage, amongst which it 
abounds. Linnaeus, therefore, recommended the graziers to 
keep their cattle in the upland pastures until the cow-bane 
was vrell grown, and then they might be driven to the low- 
lands, as their instinct would prevent them touching the 
plant. His advice w^as taken, and their annual losses, which 
were immense, from that period ceased.” 
Allied to this, comes the important and interesting in- 
quiry — What influence have the many artificial manures, 
now so largely used, on vegetation in reference to the pro- 
duction of diseases? Were I called upon to answer the 
question, I should be inclined to say — much, either by their 
