616 TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
Surgeon Rodriguez, in a few days whole herds, containing 
from 1000 to 2000 heads of cattle, were destroyed by it. In 
1857 it prevailed with great intensity. The Spanish 
veterinary surgeons consider it to be a malignant adynamic 
fever, and from the resemblance of the symptoms it appears 
to them to be the contagious typhus (vide ‘Yet. Esp./ 
Nos. 21, 23, 24, for I860). 
Whatever might be the case with this epizootic in America, 
as to its specific character, the spontaneous development in 
Russia of typhus seems not to depend so much on the nature 
and breed of the cattle as on the constitution of the soil of 
the Steppes; for in those districts where agriculture has 
made some progress the mortality is less. It is a well- 
known fact that in many parts of southern Russia the 
superior crust of the soil is formed of humus, which in some 
parts is two metres in thickness; if, therefore, we consider 
that land thus constituted is naturally damp, and holds the 
wet for a very long time, and, moreover, that its proximity to 
the large rivers exposes it to frequent inundations, while 
sometimes the heat becomes suddenly excessive and very 
variable, we may easily conceive how 7 very unhealthy these 
districts must be—Dombrutcha, for example, to cite only 
one instance. There is, besides, to add to the insalubrity of 
these marshes, an innumerable quantity of aquatic plants 
growing there, from which emanate, during the heat of an all 
but tropical sun on them, from some even w hile grow ing and 
from others when decaying, the most noxious and deleterious 
gases, notably carbonic oxide and the proto-carburetted 
hydrogen, recently so designated by M. Boussingault. 
In the Steppes there are not the same conditions of 
vegetation, for they are nothing more than vast extents of 
uncultivated plains —in a word, barren heath and swamps, 
covered here and there with stunted vegetation, w hich grows 
miserably on land having an impermeable subsoil. These 
immense plains are, however, not altogether desert. There 
are here and there villages met with, it is true, but only a 
scanty population. Agriculture, however, for want of hands, 
does not extend far from these few centres of habitation. It 
is also well known that the cattle are kept constantly out of 
doors, without any shelter whatever. The result is that 
from the melting of the snow 7 and the rain take place 
extensive inundations, which form large ponds and swamps, 
that remain for a certain time exposed to the great heat 
which supervenes. Under these conditions the water 
becomes decomposed, as well as the different substances in 
it, well-known gases become developed, and although less 
