SPLENIC APOPLEXY. 
525 
up to the day of my visit. The experience of Mr. Bradley 
seems to show that if sheep are allowed to pasture on the sus¬ 
picious grounds only for a few hours, they will take a sufficient 
amount of deleterious matter to produce their death a day or 
two afterwards. He considers the after grass not to be so dan¬ 
gerous as that first grown, but he has no experience of bulls 
being less susceptible of the affection than other cattle. 
Splenic apoplexy is essentially a blood disease, consequently 
it is not difficult for a pathologist to understand that it may 
arise from a variety of causes, any one of which is calculated 
to effect changes either in the quantity or condition of the 
several constituents of the fluid. 
In investigating the causes, I was led to inquire into the 
water supply to the cattle when in the yards, especially as the 
three last animals had been lost while they had been exclusively 
confined to these, and while also they were being fed entirely on 
hay. On inspecting the yards, I found them badly arranged, 
and by no means adapted for the preservation of the health of 
animals. This is particularly the case with the yards at the 
back of the house, where the animals alluded to had died. 
The feeding-bins, which are built of stone, are so placed that 
the water from the buildings runs towards them, and accu¬ 
mulates to such an extent that the cattle have to stand mid¬ 
leg deep in liquid manure, notwithstanding they may be fairly 
supplied with straw. The drinking-place is placed at even a 
lower level, and becomes a receptacle for so large an amount 
of the drainage of the yard that, but for a small flow of water 
from an adjacent pond conducted through it, the animals would 
be unable to obtain little else than their own evacuations 
diluted with the ordinary rain-fall. Nothing could be more 
objectionable than the water they had to drink. The other yards 
are somewhat better arranged, but still open to great improve¬ 
ments, both with regard to the supply of water and the comfort 
of the animals while at their feeding-bins. The drinking-place 
in one—the inner—yard receives a considerable portion of the 
drainage of the other, and it is worthy of note that the bullock 
which died in December was placed in this yard. A small 
stream flows at the bottom of both these yards, so that the 
animals in the outer one can get good water, while those in the 
inner are compelled to drink it after it has become charged to 
some extent with drainage matters. Jn the absence of any 
other cause, I cannot but attribute the cases which occurred 
in December and also in March to the general want of comfort 
afforded to the animals, and their drinking of water being 
charged with feculent matters — two things necessarily 
associated with the bad construction of the yards. 
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