74 
ON WOOD-EVIL AND MOOR-ILL. 
that Mr. Cox has put to me. In the early part of his last com- 
munication he thus writes : — “ If Mr. Mayer will again look 
over my communication, he will find that I merely stated the 
opinion of various farmers as to the complaint which I call 
moor-ill.” I have looked over Mr. Cox’s statement again, and 
after the opinion of the farmers as to the causes , he proceeds to 
the symptoms, which, as there was no notice to the contrary, I 
presumed he gave as his own practical experience. Upon the 
symptoms given I argued, if Mr. Cox will again refer to my letter, 
that he had not given the symptoms of moor-ill ; and from his 
describing the joints and limbs to be so much affected, I, in the 
absence of further information, considered it a rheumatic affec- 
tion. Mr. Cox next goes on to ask, whether, out of “ fifty-two 
cases of this disease which I have seen this year, both in the 
commencement and the advanced stages of it, I should not have 
observed the swelled joints and other symptoms of that complaint 
described by Mr. Youatt in his work on Cattle, and by other 
writers of minor authority, if it had, in truth, been a kind of 
rheumatism, whether chronic or acute.” In reply to this ques- 
tion, I should observe, first, that out of fifty-two cases of real 
moor-ill or wood-evil, Mr. Cox must have observed that the 
pulse ivas affected, and likewise the appetite ; that the milk was di- 
minished, and that the bowels were constipated, if he did not, but 
only observed a “ kind of grunting, succeeded by a stiffness of the 
limbs and body,” and “ mostly of the fore extremities and tho- 
rax,” I again assert, that I consider such symptoms to indicate 
that the affection was a rheumatic one ; the effect of cold, and 
the result of being turned out on a cold wet soil, and perfectly 
distinct from moor-ill or wood-evil. Secondly, that we may 
have a rheumatic affection of the limbs without any swelling of 
them or the joints. 
Although it has been proved from quotations*' from our modern 
writers on cattle medicine, that moor-ill and wood-evil were one 
and the same disease ; they agreeing (to use Mr. Cox’s words) 
with the opinions of “ our fathers,” who, “in the twilight of 
science indiscriminately called wood-evil, moor-ill, and pantas,one 
and the same disease;” and although the attempt to draw a 
distinction between them, Mr. Surginson declared to be an error 
of no small magnitude, Mr. Cox has, in the latter part of his 
letter, with its corrected portion, determined upon separating 
them, and having, if he can, a distinction : to this end he seeks 
“ the aid of any well-informed practitioner.” Wood-evil he 
“ takes to be a constipation of the maniplus;” and moor-ill, I 
hardly know what he takes it to be. The general features of 
* See my letter in November, in answer to Mr. Cox’s first letter. 
