THE PRESENT EPIDEMIC AMONG CATTLE, &C. 189 
untrue. We have been told by a clerical gentleman that this 
disease has always been known in the East Indies, and that it is 
looked for regularly after the periodical rains. We should like to 
know the opinion of yourself and our professional brethren about 
the probability of its being naturalized with us. At any rate, we 
are afraid it will remain so long as to be an “ auld acquaint- 
ance.” 
We are, with much esteem, 
Yours, &c. 
J. and G. Hawthorn. 
Our druggists are selling drinks for the “ Cattle Distemper” 
at 4^d. and 5d. each. What a profit ive shall have! 
ON THE PRESENT EPIDEMIC AMONG CATTLE, 8cc. 
By Mr. Joseph Carlisle, V.S., Wig ton, Cumberland . 
The word Epidemic applies to any disease more or less general 
or universal among cattle, sheep and swine, or even the human 
being, and which depends on some common cause or peculiar state 
of the atmosphere. 
If considered in a medical or physiological point of view, the 
most important effect produced by the atmosphere is that of 
changing the blood from a dark modena-red hue to a bright scar- 
let colour, and from a fluid that is altogether destructive to life, 
to one which is the very pabulum of it. This is accomplished 
by the function of respiration, which allows the atmosphere to 
exert its vivifying influence on the blood brought into contact 
with it through the medium of the bloodvessels — the principal 
organs concerned in the office being the lungs. The skin is 
also believed to perform a similiar function, but to a much less 
extent. 
Epidemic diseases are, doubtless, generated by the existence of 
some peculiar poison or deleterious gas by which the atmosphere 
becomes contaminated, and which, coming into contact with the 
blood in the lungs, or through the medium of the common enve- 
lope or skin, this fluid is affected or empoisoned by it. and con- 
sequently the parts which it supplies become deranged in struc- 
ture and function. 
The peculiar state of the atmosphere under which the various 
epidemics and epizootics occur has never been satisfactorily ex- 
plained. It is changed in the proportions of its component gases, 
VOL. XIV. B b 
