386 
ON TUMOURS IN CATTLE. 
this form of disease, under every circumstance in which a part is 
either inflamed from internal derangement or from external injury. 
There is in fact, it appears, a weakness of constitution in cattle, 
from which their diseases have a strong tendency either to run 
rapidly into putridity, or to sink into the chronic form of the dis- 
ease now in question. The constitution of their blood has a ten- 
dency to lead to this supposition, for in cattle there is never to be 
found, so far as I have seen, that separation of the constituent parts, 
by which, what is termed the huffy coat , is made to appear. 
Hence, with such a constitution, cattle exposed to any cause or 
causes which keep up a continued action on their system, must 
have a strong tendency to the kind of disease to which we allude. 
In the case of Mr. Hood’s cattle, the cause appears to me to be the 
want of proper shelter. “ Driven by the wind, and battered by the 
rains,” for the greater part of the year upon an open flat, without 
either natural or artificial shelter that they might have recourse to 
when necessary, their constitution is unable to bear up against it, 
and this form of disease is the consequence, which, like strangles 
in horses, seems almost exclusively to attack young animals. 
Indeed, it appears to me to be an analogous disease, for at Inver- 
Brora it had long been remarked that milch cows were not liable to 
the disease. To this general remark, however, there are some ex- 
ceptions ; because in the part of the country around Edinburgh it 
has occasionally made its appearance among milch cows as well as 
young stock ; but, of course, the proportion of young to old cattle 
in this part of the country is very small, when compared to what 
it must be in a grazing district. In alluding to this view of the 
subject, it is necessary to remark that, although the disease has not 
to my knowledge shewn itself to such an extent on any other indi- 
vidual farm, I was at once convinced, when I saw the cases at 
Inver-Brora, that it was not so rare a disease as I at first imagined ; 
and I found on inquiry that it had been observed in some parts of 
that neighbourhood. At Dunrobin it had occasionally occurred as 
stated in Mr. Hood’s letter, but had almost now disappeared. 
This circumstance, however, only served to confirm me in my 
opinion of its cause; because I saw that belts of fine thriving plan- 
tations had been gradually rising up, and now formed a complete 
shelter to the cattle which pasture there, more especially shel- 
tering them from the sea breezes, while the hills defend them from 
the land winds. Mr. Hood found, too, that a change of situation 
had often an effect in checking the progress of the disease, or of 
effecting a cure. In some instances he drove his cattle to another 
farm, where, although a higher situation, there was more uneven 
ground, and of course, more shelter. The circumstance is of itself 
sufficient to shew, and from what I have before stated it must be evi- 
dent, that the disease is produced by local causes, and that those are 
