D11. CHISHOLM OX THE MALTS DRACUNCULUS. 557 
According to Lord Somerville, the Merino or Spanish breed of 
sheep have naturally a degree of throatiness or production of loose 
pendulous skin under the neck. 
With regard to the difficult and spasmodic action in breathing, 
I should consider it to be owing to the pressure of the swelling 
on the upper part of the trachea ; and the mucous discharge from 
the nostrils to be traced to the breaking of the tumour internally, 
as in one of the cases, where there was discharge from the nasal 
cavities, the swelling evidently decreased. 
The old sheep shewing this enlargement renders it quite evident 
to me that the cause of the disease is to be attributed to the water 
being impregnated with saline or mineral properties. If the owner 
were to give his sheep water impregnated with lime or chalk, and 
remove them to a dry upland pasture, the defect would, in my opi- 
nion, entirely cease. I think your correspondent would have 
elicited more and better advice had he given the post-mortem 
appearances, and particularly the state of the tumours. 
[Our occasional correspondents would confer on us much obli- 
gation, by communicating their experience of this disease. Some 
breeders, far far distant from us, are anxiously awaiting a satis- 
factory elucidation of the subject. — Y.] 
DR. CHISHOLM ON THE MALIS DRACUNCULUS. 
[Concluded from p. 376.] 
Of late, the propagation of the disease has been assigned to 
contagion. My excellent and respected friend, Sir James Mac- 
grigor, and other gentlemen connected with him, or residing in the 
East Indies, have favoured the public with very valuable infor- 
mation on the disease of which dracunculi are the cause : but they 
have not been sufficiently communicative on the very interesting 
subject of the physiology of these animals ; and, perhaps, from 
not having sufficient opportunity to examine and inquire into 
the local circumstances of the country from which this cause of 
disease was derived, and deceived by the extraordinary symp- 
toms it exhibited, which the previous knowledge I have alluded 
to would have explained, they have assigned it to contagion, or 
that principle which communicates the disease by the emanation 
of its virus from the person suffering under it to a healthy one. 
How this can be effected in the case of dracunculi, I can by no 
means conceive. There is, however, I apprehend, a deficiency 
in the statement of the circumstances which led my friend to the 
vol. x. 4 c 
