534 ON SPECIFIC FEVER OF HORSES, OXEN, ^c. 
rally received opinion of its cause. Even where this cause is 
present in other parts of the country, where sheep are kept in 
smaller numbers in different villages, and housed, the rot ap¬ 
peared to me a breaking up of the constitution from secondary 
disease—the consequence of this specific fever. Animals with 
incipient tubercles in the lungs and liver are fattened ; but this 
plethoric state excites an inflammatory action in the tubercles, 
which ends in suppuration, or the death of the animal from 
symptomatic fever, or diarrhoea, &c. 
1 do not agree w'ith Mr. Sewell, that animals with organic dis¬ 
ease from this specific fever are ever curable, because disorgani¬ 
zation has already began. My experience of young animals con¬ 
gregated in large establishments has led me to very different con¬ 
clusions. I could excite inflammatory action whenever I chose 
by sending a colt that had the lungs affected back to the stables ; 
and the same by sheep, by turning them in among the flock. 
This inflammatory action may be renewed again and again, and, 
perhaps, once too often. 
While I kept my rams isolated they did well; but those that 
were turned into my flock of 200 ewes invariably died. I lost 
most of the lambs one year by this fever, and in some measure, 
but not entirely, prevented in the next year by separation. 
The stock in the cow farm at Hissar varied from 2682 to 1142 
neat cattle. They did not appear to me to be very susceptible 
of the attack of this specific fever. It might, however, break 
out in one herd, and yet there not be a single death in the next 
one, although so great a number of young and old animals were 
congregated together in large open spaces, entirely surrounded by 
brick walls, and the sheds opening inwards. 
The cows were not milked, for the young ones had the whole 
of the milk. This peculiar care of the calves doubtless rendered 
them less predisposed to disease, and by giving the stock a small 
quantity of hay in the hot weather, when the grass was short, 
and keeping them in during the rains, for a week or ten days, in 
order to prevent the feeding on too much green grass, the golee 
or inflammatory fever was prevented in this large farm, while 
the want of these precautions caused loss in the smaller herds in 
the surrounding villages. 
There is another reason why specific fever is not so prevalent 
among neat cattle. The cow-dung being used by the natives 
for fuel, is frequently removed to be dried ; whereas in the sheep- 
folds and sheds it remains untouched, and a powerful source of 
infection. 
The Calcutta Hunt Club hounds have always suffered severely 
by this fever, whether produced by the congregating of the fox- 
