SPLENIC APOPLEXY. 
529 
which had been lost after the application of the salt. The 
lesions which were discovered on the examination distinctly 
proved that the animal had sunk from the same disease. 
The blood was everywhere black in colour and only partially 
coagulated, and the spleen was enlarged to about three times 
its natural size. In concluding this report I would express 
a hope that the causes of this fatal malady may yet be made 
evident by the co-operation of the chemist, the botanist, and 
the animal pathologist, so as to lead to the adoption of effec¬ 
tual preventive measures. 
(Signed) Jas. B. Simonds. 
Report of the examination of the Pastures in the neighbourhood 
of Ilchester, Somerset. By Professor Buck man. 
The little town of Ilchester is situate on an alluvial plain, 
through the centre of which the river Yeo takes its more or 
less winding course. 
This river flat, which varies in width to as much as five 
miles, has a subsoil of alluvial mud and sand, intermixed 
with more or less of the southern or flint drift. 
The land, which is in grass, is subject to flooding from the 
Yeo and its tributaries, and is distinguished by the terms, 
“ useful meadow,” “ marsh,” or “ moorland,” according as 
it offers facilities for preventing the stagnation of the water, 
and so will pay for manuring and other cultivative processes. 
These flat meadows may further be said to occupy a valley of 
denudation in the Lower Lias shales, the spoils of which, 
mixed with sandy silt and the flint drifts before mentioned, 
form the subsoil of the valley, which latter is bounded by 
low eminences, whose washed sides present the stiff intractile 
soil so characteristic of “ unmitigated blue lias.” 
Now these two positions, namely, the river flats on the 
one hand and the liassic elevations on the other, are here 
remarkable as being concerned in the production of two 
kinds of disease in the animals that feed upon the pastures. 
Thus, the lowlands are dotted with meadows which the 
farmers point out as having been fatal to the cattle and 
sheep which have fed upon them, producing a malady which 
has been described as “splenic apoplexy,” whilst the higher 
meadows have the name of “scouring” or “tart lands.” 
It should here be mentioned that the well waters which 
I tasted were all more or less of a medicinal class. The 
water from some wells at Bierly Farm, Tintinhull, and 
Sock, for example, being strongly impregnated with sul- 
xxxv. 31 
