710 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
find in these things, separately or combined, more than 
enough to prove that the blood must be the first to suffer. 
The fluid will necessarily be rich or poor, pure or impure, in 
proportion to the completeness of the change it undergoes in 
the process of respiration and the quantity of albuminous and 
saline materials which enter it in a given space of time from 
the assimilation of the food; and thus will it be enabled to 
maintain or not—assisted by the secretory and excretory 
organs—that amount of purity of composition and proper spe¬ 
cific gravity necessary for its free circulation and the yielding 
up of its nutritive and vital properties to every tissue of the 
frame. 
We have been led to make these observations by having, on 
several occasions during the past summer, and again very 
lately, been called upon to give advice in cases of alarming 
fatality among cattle. In every instance an investigation, 
conducted on the spot, has satisfied us of the source of 
origin of the disease; and that we rightly judged, receives 
confirmation from the circumstance that the preventive mea¬ 
sures which were enjoined have proved, without exception, 
most effective in arresting its further ravages. 
In one case, occurring during the prevalence of very hot 
weather, the fatality arose from giving the animals—already 
in a state of plethora—an inordinate quantity of oil cake and 
rich nutritive grasses. With such an elevated temperature, 
the hydro-carbonaceous materials could neither be burnt up 
nor deposited in the form of fat fast enough to free the 
blood sufficiently of them, and death resulted as a con¬ 
sequence. It was singular that in these cases a fibrinous 
effusion, three fourths of an inch in thickness, had taken 
place upon the outer surface of the heart, but that the vessels 
of the organ give no evidence of inflammatory action. This 
remarkable lesion was associated with others which as plainly 
indicated an altered condition of the blood, although they 
were of less importance to the continuance of life. 
In another instance several valuable animals fell a speedy 
sacrifice to attacks of passive congestion of the vessels of the 
brain, accompanied with enormous engorgement of the 
spleen, and transudation of vitiated and grumous blood into 
