29 
Mr. Farrall : If the ova are deposited in the spring on the 
grass, and taken up by intermediate agents, such as molluscs, 
&c., could nothing be found with which to dress the land so 
as to destroy these intermediate agents ? 
Mr. Thompson said he thought the best thing to do was to 
destroy the embryo. This could easily be done by dressing 
the land with salt, because as soon as the ova burst out, 
and come in contact with salt they would die. Lime had 
failed to destroy either the ova or intermediate agents, and 
until the true natural history of the fluke was discovered let 
us follow the dictates of nature, and imitate the salt banks 
and salt marshes where the disease is not known, by dressing 
the land well with crushed rock salt, as it would tend to 
destro} 7 intermediate agents as well as the embryo. The land 
was washed by the rains that fell upon it, and the salt, or 
salines, which it originally contained, in course of time, were 
drained down into the river beds and into the ocean, and 
if the necessary ingredients for the production and preser¬ 
vation of proper food for animals which lived on the 
natural products of the earth were not renewed, then 
it could not very well help producing disease in animals 
When he first came to reside in Aspatria, he found that red- 
water in cattle was a very prevalent disease in the neighbour¬ 
hood, but since the Agricultural Co-operative Society had been 
established a very large quantity of crushed-rock salt had been 
used for dressing land, and the result was that redwater, 
which was once so prevalent, had now disappeared. 
Most of the diseases met with in animals were due to the 
want of chlorides in the land. The waters of the Mediter¬ 
ranean were growing more salt every year, which seemed to 
confirm the theory that the salt of the land was being washed 
into the sea. 
