IN SUFFICIENT QUANTITIES TO PROVE POISONOUS? 191 
She recovered under a farinaceous diet and oleaginous 
clysters.’* Mr. Wallis informed us that those animals which 
were seen immediately before death gave indications of 
stupor, and were also the subjects of increased thirst. 
The enlarged spleen, in particular, and also the condition 
of the intestinal mucous membrane would suggest the pro¬ 
bability of the disease being typhoid in its nature, and 
especially should we incline to this opinion, if in addition to 
the lesions mentioned, sloughing ulcers, a swollen state of the 
membrane, and disease of the solitary and Peyer’s glands 
had been observed; and which, perhaps, although not noticed, 
did exist. 
But while we have proof of the poisonous plant, above 
alluded to, existing in great abundance in the meadows, we 
have not heard of any causes especially calculated to induce 
typhus. Therefore, while we may admit that the disease 
observed in the intestines could have been produced by the 
plants alluded to, nevertheless, can we as easily understand the 
cause, in any of the instances, of the enlarged spleen ? Is it of 
usual occurrence in poisoning by such agents as is supposed 
to be in operation in these cases? We are not aware that it 
is; but if such is the case, the only way that suggests itself 
as likely to produce such an effect, would be by its action on 
the semilunar ganglia, or the solar plexus of nerves, or, 
perhaps on both. In this way we can understand that such 
might be the case. 
The fact of the mare having been in the meadow for the 
space of three months, and during which time she improved 
so much in condition that the owner had her taken home to 
his own premises, with a view of putting her to work, and 
she having died in twelve hours after being put into the yard, 
with the same disease as those that died in the meadow, 
makes it still more difficult to understand what the cause of 
the malady is. 
May it not be that, although she had accumulated flesh 
while at pasture, some cause or other existing in that locality 
may have so far predisposed her to disease that either the 
change of locality, or something special connected with it, 
became the exciting agent, which rapidly developed the 
immediate cause of death? The question, then, which would 
suggest itself is,—Was there anything deteterious to health in 
the straw-yard, or near to it, which could thus act? We 
find, on inquiry, that the owner of the animals in question 
was a butcher, and that the blood and offal from the 
slaughter-house were thrown into the yard for the pigs, and 
when not consumed by them it may have become decom- 
