Scientific Intelligence. — Zoology. 411 
as it is at Rio of the sarcocele and hydrocele. It is true, we do 
not here see the melancholy appearances of idiocy which are so 
frequently combined in Europe endemically with the goitre; 
yet the look of the persons who have the disorder in a higli de- 
gree, is not merely drowsiness and want of energy, but even 
stupidity, in the strict sense of the expression. It is customary 
to apply, at the commencement of the disease, poultices of warm 
gourds, the patient at the same time drinking water, which has 
stood for several days upon the pounded mass of large ant-hills. 
The component parts of the ant-hills, which are from five to six 
feet high, in the construction of which the insect makes use of a 
peculiar animal slime as a cement, certainly seem capable of 
counteracting the causes which produce the goitre. Perhaps, 
too, the acid of ants may have a beneficial influence on the re- 
laxed nerves of the patient, as well as on the debility of the 
lymphatic system. The negroes here, as in Africa, make much 
use of mucilaginous substances : they use, for instance, gum ara- 
bic against the goitre with good success ; a mode of treatment 
which seems to point at the origin of this disease as proceeding 
from diet.— and Martins' Travels. 
ZOOLOGY. 
15. Acute Rheumatism observed in the Horse. — Rheuma;tic 
affections are very frequent in domestic animals, and yet the 
works on veterinary medicine contain few examples of them. It 
is therefore useful to collect with care all the facts of this nature, 
in order to fix the attention upon a disease which is the cause of 
the greater number of those incurable claudications, which baffle 
the skill of the physician. Towards the end of August 1818, 
a sound horse, which ;hg,d till then been in good health, appear- 
ed less free than usual in the motions of his fore legs. This 
constraint increased progressively, and especially in the left fore 
leg, so that on the 27th, the animal could with difficulty sup- 
port himself. The appetite was good, the pulse regular, the 
diseased part was not sensible to the touch. On the following 
day the animal did not limp on the left leg, while he could with 
difficulty draw the right one along. The claudication increased 
or diminished, and even disappeared, several times during a 
month, sometimes attacking one limb, sometimes the other, ac- 
