POISONING SHEEP WITH ARSENIC. 
079 
those numerous and powerful muscles inserted into and encom- 
passing the larynx — speaking briefly, abruptly suffocated , when 
not otherwise exhausted. Strangulation being induced, it is ac- 
companied with starting eyeballs and violent muscular contor- 
tions : in fact, a set of symptoms are present such as would be 
exhibited by a hearty dog upon finding his throat suddenly fet- 
tered by the extreme twisting of a cord tightly around it. 
When I have witnessed, particularly in rabid horses, the im- 
mense and long-continued cutaneous evaporation, sweating stages 
defying adequate description, it has thrust on my mind the con- 
viction of a salutary effort of Nature — a spectacle exhibiting the 
last defensive throes of life at approaching death. I have some- 
times been an eye-witness of protracted cases of rabid horses, 
with apparently an abatement of all the symptoms so late as the 
sixth day, and erroneously supposed that time was winning, When 
death has suddenly closed the scene. 
I submit that we should not be discouraged by the failure of the 
operation in the first, second, or third instance ; for, making the 
best of it, it may be of avail only in peculiar instances, such as I 
have just cited, where there is extra tenacity of life, such as an 
individual possessing within himself more than ordinary powers in 
resisting disease : but hitherto this grim tyrant has been no re- 
specter of persons ; when its venom had once reached the senso- 
rium, the young, the old, the robust, the delicate, all have 
succumbed. 
I am, my dear Sir, your’s, &c. 
A CASE OF POISONING SHEEP WITH ARSENIC, 
AND THE ANALYSIS. 
Communicated by Professor Dick. 
My dear Sir, 
I beg to inform you that, about a month ago, I was called to 
attend a stock of thirty-two cattle that had been poisoned (I 
should rather say destroyed) from having been washed with a 
sheep bath, for the destruction of a few vermin that had ap- 
peared upon them. They were washed on the neck, back, tail- 
root, and some of them between the hind legs. 
One of them licked himself, and died in six or eight hours. 
The others were observed to lick themselves, and seven more of 
them died from the absorption of the bath through the medium 
