96 DISEASE AMONG THE EAST-LOTHIAN FOXHOUNDS. 
well on Saturday night. The food ascribed above is their usual 
food during the hunting season. When not hunted, the porridge 
is thinner and more gruel is added. There were twenty- 
eight couple out. It was a long day for an opening day, and the 
weather was intensely hot f Captain Kinloch gives a list show¬ 
ing the ages, number, and sex of the hounds that died—nine¬ 
teen in all—out of which there were thirteen bitches, and the 
rest dogs. The greatest proportion of dogs that died were 
the six-year old. ^‘The first death was on Monday afternoon 
(not Wednesday as printed). By Wednesday morning there 
were five or six couple dead. The rest lingered on for ten 
days longer, the last case occurring on the fifteenth day 
The hounds have twice been taJeen ill icith similar symptoms in 
each case after hunting in the same covert always early in the 
season ; never as the season ivent on, but never so badly as in 
the present outbreak. On one occasion Mr. Fletcher lost 
three couple out of ten couple hunted.^^ In three weeks the 
surviving hounds were out again in good work. The im¬ 
portant points altogether unnoticed by Mr. Gamgee in his 
first account, which Professor Dick’s questions elicited, were, 
that the hounds had a long and hard dafs work for an ojwning 
day—that the weather ivas intensely hot—that flesh was for the 
flrst time added to their ordinary food, which was also made 
thicker the hunting season commences —and that the hounds 
liave twice been taken with similar symjoioms, always early in the 
season, never as the season went on. 
The morbid appearances in one of the dogs examined by 
Dr. Thomson showed strong inflammatory action of the serous 
and mucous membranes of the stomach and intestines, and 
intussusception, the invaginated portion of gut being about 
fifteen inches, and quite gangrenous. In the second dog 
examined there was no intussusception found, and in ‘‘'the 
chemical examination, when special search was made for test¬ 
ing the presence of strychnine, and the poisonous metals, 
none of the processes revealed the slightest evidence of the 
existence of poison in any of the organs examined.Dr. 
Thomson concludes his report thus:—he had ‘^simply to 
state 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.” 
It is admitted on all hands that the prominent symptoms 
of the disease were vomiting and purging, with muscular 
spasms—the effect of highly inflammatory action; and the 
appearances on dissection clearly showed its seat and nature. 
“ Res est notissima, sed causa latet.” A little reflection was 
sufficient to convince any but a prejudiced reasoner that the 
