66 
DISEASES OP THE STOxMACII AND INTESTINES. 
diarrhcea is often curative in its results, when the cause has 
ceased to operate any further. 
In the event of the cause or causes being permitted to con¬ 
tinue their influence the disease assumes a more serious 
character; the debility of which we have before spoken soon 
appears, irregular appetite follows, and a rapidly increasing 
emaciation proceeding to complete prostration, is the conse¬ 
quence of the impaired nutrition. 
Diarrhoea of the simple kind is frequent among cattle and 
sheep when feeding upon succulent diet. Sheep especially 
suffer when pastured upon clover that has grown luxuriantly 
and rapidly under the stimulus of the manure from a recent 
pasturage upon the same ground; the young plant so forced 
to a premature development possesses in a particular degree 
those peculiar properties which render such kinds of herbage 
innutritions and deleterious. Allowing the animals to con¬ 
tinue in such feeding grounds necessitates an extension of 
the disease which might at the commencement have been 
cured by removal of the affected subjects to a better or older 
pasture; but often the true cause is not suspected, and the 
animals are consequently permitted to remain under their in¬ 
fluence until loss to some extent is incurred. 
Diarrhoea of the unfavorable type may, as we have seen, 
originate in any of the simple alterations of general circum¬ 
stances to which all animals are subject, but certain fixed 
conditions are sometimes concerned in its constant prevalence. 
Some lands upon the poor, undrained, lias clays have ob¬ 
tained an unenviable reputation in this particular, being 
known as tart^^ and scouring lands, the researches of 
Dr. Voelcker have elicited some interesting and important 
particulars, that have been already quoted in the Veterinarian 
in reference to the “scouring lands of central Somerset. 
Taking a general view of the causes of subacute diarrhoea, 
we shall find them arrange themselves under the head of 
moisture and mineral matters in excess. Moisture in excess, 
whether occasional and merely dependent upon peculiarity 
of season, or permanent, as in the case of undrained and re¬ 
tentive soils, stands first; its influence in the production of a 
luxuriant and imperfectly developed herbage has been fre¬ 
quently remarked upon, while the occurrence of diarrhoea in 
wet seasons, and in undrained clay lands, is a fact well known 
to practical men. Next, we may, according to Dr. Voelcker, 
consider the quantity of mineral matter in the plants or the 
water of the locality as a point of some considerable import¬ 
ance ; even in the hay from “ scouring lands the Doctor finds 
a remarkable excess of salts. The direct action of mineral 
