512 
ON “ GRASS-STAGGERS," &c. 
A Communication from Mr. Jas. Storrer, Y.S. 
Turriff, August 12 , 1861 . 
Gentlemen, —In the bustle of an extensive country prac¬ 
tice I have very little time to write, and am also known to 
my intimate friends as being a notoriously lazy corre¬ 
spondent. This statement may account for my not having 
written anything for the Veterinarian for probably about 
three years; I do, however, find time to read it, and I 
embrace the present opportunity to express the pleasure with 
which I have perused such papers as those by Professor 
Brown, Mr. Watson, and many others. 
The immediate cause of my present communication is an 
article, published in your last number, by Mr. Macintosh, 
describing a disease which he calls “ grass staggers/' I 
hesitate not to say that I am perfectly satisfied that the cases 
he describes are not caused by perennial rye grass or any 
other grass, and that the symptoms detailed are distinctly 
those of lead-poisoning. Mr. Macintosh subscribes himself 
a student; and yet he goes on to detail treatment in the first 
person singular, as if he had by the labour of years matured 
his views. 
“Our hope is in the young," is a truism which all, who 
are interested in a good cause, place great value upon—but 
the young can only be a source of hope, if they are at first 
careful, cautious, and, may I say plodding, students, using 
well the means within their reach for laying in a stock of 
information, and only venturing to take the place of teachers 
when fully able to sustain the position. Mr. Macintosh 
evidently has not made himself acquainted with our veterinary 
literature of some twelve or fourteen years' standing, else he 
could not have failed to detect some preparation of lead in 
the stomach of the animal he dissected. I would now merely 
refer Mr. Macintosh to the paper of the late Mr. Cuming, 
of Ellon, on “ Lead-poisoning," published in the Quarterly 
Journal of Agriculture of the Highland and Agricultural 
Society, about the year 1849 or 1850; and I cannot but 
regret that so valuable a treatise has not yet appeared in the 
columns of the Veterinarian , as no more useful paper ever 
graced its pages. 
Allow me, however, to state that Mr. Macintosh might 
not have spurred me up to the writing of this letter, had I 
not felt that we, as a profession, are perfectly inundated with 
