666 
“ GRASS-STAGGERS” SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN 
“ LEAD-POISONING.” 
By A. J. McIntosh, Student, Edinburgh. 
Gentlemen, —The cause of my present communication 
is a letter published in the last number of your Journal by 
Mr. Storrer, in which he states that the symptoms of grass- 
staggers communicated by me in your August number were 
not those of grass-staggers, but of lead-poisoning, and he 
there stigmatises my communication as one of a class “ solely 
intended to bring the writers into notice;” all this he states 
without bringing forward the slightest proof as to the cor¬ 
rectness of his statement. He makes an assertion, and says 
he is perfectly satisfied that the symptoms detailed were 
distinctly those of lead-poisoning, and brings forward no 
proof to show how he arrives at that conclusion, but would 
have us take for granted that it must be so, because he 
asserts it to be las opinion, which he insinuates is founded on 
twelve or fourteen years’ experience. But that is not enough 
for the advanced readers of the Veterinarian , nor is it enough 
for students. If Professor Dick, or any other professor, in 
his lectures to his students were to make a statement with¬ 
out giving either a why or a wherefore, merely telling us in 
proof of its correctness that he had at least thirty years’ ex¬ 
perience, then would veterinary literature get to a fine crisis. 
Mr. Storrer goes on to say that I subscribe myself a 
student, and yet detail treatment in the first person singular. 
Allow me to ask him, in what person ought I to have 
written ? To have used the first person plural would have 
been presumption, for that is used exclusively by editors, 
kings, and clergymen, and there is no other person, either 
singular or plural, which I could honestly have used. 
But the fact is, Mr. Storrer directs his undivided attention 
to my youth and inexperience, and seems more inclined to 
make a halting point for the young, than take the place of a 
teacher, and discuss the symptoms of lead-poisoning or 
grass-staggers (which a practitioner of twelve or fourteen 
years’ standing ought to be able to do), and assist in doing 
away with the useless literature which he pretends so much 
to abhor. 
I must now inform Mr. Storrer that the communication I 
forwarded to the Veterinarian was not sent with any egotistic 
views, i( nor with any desire to bring myself into notice 
but seeing the disease so prevalent, and in many cases fatal, 
