POISONING OP CATTLE BY ARSENIC. 
265 
observed in the cows; in fact, nothing unusual had been 
noticed in any of the animals. On the succeeding morning, 
on entering the byre, some of the cattle were dead; but during 
the interval between bed-time and the period of death, they 
had evidently experienced an acute attack of diarrhoea, or, to 
use Mr. Thornborrow’s own words, the dung was running 
out of the byre door as thin as water, and emitting a very dis¬ 
agreeable smell. The progress of the malady did not, in every 
case, run its course in so short a period, as some of the ani¬ 
mals lingered on through the course of the next day, and part 
of the succeeding night. The symptoms in these cases were 
colicky pains, violent tenesmus, and the ejection with consi¬ 
derable force of fluid faeces emitting a disagreeable smell, 
which continued till they sank. The aid of a cow-leech 
was sought for some of these more lingering cases, who 
exhibited medicine to them, the action of which caused 
no remission of the symptoms. The pony lingered on for 
two or three days, but the same symptoms were observed as 
in the cattle. The carcases were opened by cutting through 
the abdominal walls in the direction of the linea alba. The 
intestines on being exposed showed symptoms of acute in¬ 
flammation, or as the owner said, they were of a dark red colour 
in patches. He could state nothing further in regard to the 
post-mortem appearances. All the animals were buried 
almost immediately after death, as it was thought in the 
neighbourhood that it was some new and infectious disease 
which had broken out amongst them. 
The immediate subject of my present communication is 
the last animal that died, namely, a valuable cow, two or 
three weeks before calving. Her death took place on the 18th of 
June last year. She appeared all right on the preceding night, 
and only lived a few minutes after Mr. Thornborrow entered 
the byre on the following morning, consequently she had no 
medicine exhibited to her. From the period of her death 
various conjectures and opinions as to the cause of the mor¬ 
tality had been expressed by Mr. Thornborrow’s neighbours, 
who were all farmers and stock-keepers, and who agreed that no 
disease like it had been seen in the neighbourhood, or on that 
farm previously. Falling into company with Mr. Thornborrow 
on the 9th of May he mentioned to me these cases of “bad luck,” 
as he termed them, with the symptoms as before detailed, and 
asked my opinion as to the probable cause of death, when I 
told him the symptoms and progress of the attack more re¬ 
sembled cases of poisoning than any known disease peculiar to 
cattle in this neighbourhood. Two or three days after this 
conversation took place, I was interrogated by Mr. Thorn- 
