46 DISEASE AMONG THE MID-LOTHIAN FOXHOUNDS. 
was also pursued. None of the processes, however, revealed the slightest 
evidence of the existence of poison in any of the organs examined. 
In concluding this report, 1 have simply to remark that the chemical 
examination does not throw any light on the death of these animals, nor 
on the morbid appearances which their organs were found to present. 
I am, dear Sir, yours very faithfully, 
Murray Thomson, M.D., F.C.S., 
Lecturer on Chemistry, E.M. School. 
Professor Dick, Veterinary College. 
The preceding report proves the absence of any poisonous 
material, either in the contents of the stomach and intestines 
or in the structure of the other viscera, from absorption, 
which were examined. The prominent symptoms of the 
disease were vomiting and purging, the effect of the highly- 
inflammatory action which had taken place in the former 
organs; but no vegetable or mineral poison, known as such, 
having been found, the cause of that inflammatory action 
must be traced elsewhere. The appearances found upon dis¬ 
section clearly showed the seat and nature of the disease of 
which the dogs had died, which were distinctly shown in 
the acute inflammatory process, which had extended over the 
whole course of the stomach and intestinal canal, involvins: 
all their coats, especially their serous membrane. But none 
of the morbid symptoms were either connected with or de¬ 
pendent upon the presence of any single virulent or irritant 
poison. To comprehend the true nature of the affection, its 
history must not be confined to a single view-point, but all 
the circumstances bearing upon it must be taken into cumu¬ 
lative consideration. And the division of the causes of a 
disease into proximate, remote, predisposing, and exciting, 
which the old medical pathologists followed, may not be in¬ 
appropriately adopted on the present occasion. Now, what 
was the real state in which the dogs were placed relative to 
this fatal outbreak ? The outbreak occurred at the com¬ 
mencement of the hunting season, before the dogs had been 
accustomed to work—a circumstance Mr. Kinloch refers to 
in similar attacks of previous years, although in a much 
milder form. The dogs had a very fatiguing day^s work, and 
had drunk, when heated, freely of cold water. The day was 
very close and sultry, and the season of the year was 
the autumn, when attacks of bowel complaints in the forms 
of colic and cholera usually prevail in a mitigated or more 
violent type, according to existing atmospheric influences. 
In my opinion, the co-operation of all these combined causes 
can satisfactorily account for the whole pack being seized not 
long after the second feeding. Their strength was tried by 
