PROGRESS OF VETERINARY SCIENCE AND ART. 339 
learned computations, physiological or chemical interpreta- 
tions based on the chemical constitution of the animal 
body that has been so worked at and analysed, — com- 
pensates for the probably failing substance in the blood and 
in the lungs, in that way re-establishing the normal composi- 
tion, and hence a strength-imparting condition ; and, in this 
manner, the diseased process is neutralized or overcome.” 
My readers must pardon long sentences ; their abstruse con- 
struction is as deficient in itself as the explanation Busse 
wishes to give us of the action of sulphate of iron. Still 
he writes with such an earnestness, and, in many other re- 
spects, with such a knowledge of.his subject, that his opinions 
cannot be overlooked. He may be right in his meaning, but 
he fails in the exposition of that meaning. Lower down, 
after having enforced a good number of facts, on which he 
has established his views, he says that he exempts himself 
from further remarks, inasmuch as opportunities for accumu- 
lating other proofs of the value of this specific will not fail 
to present themselves, and he hopes soon to hear of still more 
confirmatory results. Busse’s reflections, be it observed, are 
on no discovery of his own, but principally on what MM. 
Rodemacher and Konig, the one a physician and the other a 
veterinarian, had recommended and recognised as effectual in 
the treatment of pleuro-pneumonia. 
The sudden transition of the opinions of many from the 
belief that antiphlogistics were best at one time, and at an- 
other that tonics alone could save our cattle, was not so 
marked in Great Britain as elsewhere, and a modified de- 
pletive course, with the use of stimulants, was enjoined. 
Blistering, though it has been observed to aggravate the 
disease at the time, has to the present day been looked upon 
as attended by ultimate favorable results, and animals have 
been supported through the disease by the exhibition of sul- 
phuric or nitric ether, ammonia, creosote, and other such 
agents. It must, however, be remembered, that stimulants 
do not tend to increase tone so much as they momentarily 
excite irritability, and that, as their effects are not persistent, 
their value in overcoming atony is questionable. 
If due attention is paid to the exhibition of iron in any of 
its forms, not empirically used, but wisely employed when 
not palpably counterindicated, are the results at any time 
more favorable than when other drugs are exhibited? Dubois, a 
Belgian veterinary surgeon, has performed some experiments 
bearing on this question, having seen that one of his pro- 
fessional brethren, Dupont, strongly recommended it. Out of 
thirteen animals treated with the sulphate of iron, ten recovered 
