EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
303 
as a condiment than as a medicinal agent ; nevertheless, it is 
a powerful general stimulant, and said also to act as a diu- 
retic and diaphoretic. It has been analysed by Gutret, and 
found to contain, “ an acrid volatile oil , bitter resin , extractive , 
sugar, gum, starch, woody fibre, vegetable albumen, acetic 
acid, and acetate and sulphate of lime.” On the first three 
principles its activity depends ; and as the plant is indigenous 
to this country, and also cultivated very largely, there is no 
reason why it may not be employed by us medicinally. 
That an epizootic has been singularly destructive of cattle 
in the Crimea, is proved from a statement made by the 
special correspondent of the Times , who says that, “The 
French Intendance and our Commissariat have had to con- 
tend with very serious obstacles, and among them there was 
none greater than the mortality among the cattle purchased 
by their agents, which in some instances has utterly ruined 
contractors 6 for delivery.’ In nine months the French lost 
8,000 bullocks out of 17,500, at Samsoun alone, and we lost 
at the same place 4,000 out of 10,000 bullocks. But even 
those who survive do not get very fair treatment on their way 
to the Crimea. It is horribly true that the unfortunate 
animals are sometimes hoisted up into the ships and out of 
them again by their horns , and that some of them in calf have 
been hoisted out by means of slings of rope under the belly , and 
have died in agony on the wharf. The losses in this way, 
and by the way in which the animals are beaten and 
crowded together and fed, are disgraceful in every sense, and 
revolting to humanity. In some of the ships there are no 
troughs of water provided for them. Our cruelty recoils on 
ourselves, for they die of exhaustion and thirst, or are reduced 
to skin and bone. There is no care taken to feed them in 
others of those ships, except by throwing wads of hay into 
the hold. One vessel with a cargo of 100 cattle and 800 sheep, 
from Baltschick, landed only 63 cattle and 200 sheep at 
Balaklava ; but it is quite evident that if we made it the con- 
tractor’s business to take care of the animals by only making 
an agreement for delivery alive, we should save money and 
avert much suffering. That it can be done we have proof, 
