405 
EPIDEMIC AMONG CATTLE. 
We regret to understand that the murrain has been spreading in 
the western district of this county, and has been increasing in this 
and several neighbouring parishes. 
One farmer, near Aberdalgie, has lost seven out of nine affected, 
of which some died in about twelve hours after being seized, and 
others lingered six or seven days. 
The symptoms are precisely the same as those which character- 
ized the disease in England, and, following generally upon the 
cattle being put to pasture during the cold and parching droughts 
of May, is supposed to be induced by the comparatively dry and 
sapless herbage. In this event, the rapid improvement in the qua- 
lity of the pasture consequent on the change of weather, will, it 
is hoped, check the progress of the disease. 
Perthshire Courier. 
RESEARCHES INTO THE CAUSES OF BLINDNESS. 
By M REYNAL, Chief Veterinary Surgeon to the 6th Lancers. 
[Continued from page 353.] 
Part II. Chapter II. 
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE CAUSES OF BLINDNESS. 
OUR task has hitherto been an easy one. We have had to draw 
on our memory, and to revive our recollection of the irrational 
practices which for two years have daily met our view ; but now 
we must proceed to penetrate the mysteries of the internal animal 
economy, in order to trace out, even from their very birth, the mo- 
difications that eventually tend to produce blindness, in preference 
to every other affection. 
We have reckoned much on the kindness with which the 
Royal and Central Society of Agriculture is wont to regard those 
who, through its mediation, annually pay their tribute to veteri- 
nary medicine, and we should be perfectly content if, in thus offering 
to it the results of our studies, we induced some of our colleagues, 
who practise in districts where blindness is prevalent, to draw up a 
catalogue of the causes to which they see reason to attribute it. 
It is only by researches and communications such as these that 
