DISEASE AMONG THE EAST-LOTHIAN FOXHOUNDS. 97 
dogs had not been poisoned from deadly poison placed in the 
covert where they were hunted, for the purpose of destroying 
vermin, as may be supposed, seeing the dogs fed as usual 
after their return to the kennel, and continued well and un¬ 
affected for nearly two days; and on these points Professor 
Dick’s remarks are conclusive. He justly observes, ‘‘ There 
is no instance on record of the appetite remaining unimpaired 
upwards of twelve hours after the administration of an acrid 
deadly poison.” And they could not have been poisoned by 
any deleterious substance being mixed accidentally or other¬ 
wise with their food, as all lice dofjs lolio partook of it would 
have suffered more or less; but the fact is, that that portion of 
the pack alone was seized which had been hunting, while the 
other portion, which remained at home in the kennel, and 
was not out, although fed out of the same trough, and with 
the same food, was altogether unaffected. It may be said 
that the food alone cannot therefore be alleged as the sole 
cause of the outbreak, and Professor Dick gets over this diffi¬ 
culty by referring it to various co-operating and concurring 
predisposing and exciting causes; and his reasoning is well 
deserving of careful consideration. I may not agree with 
him in toto as to the analogous nature of the braxy in sheep, 
and the affection in pigs arising from over-feeding, with the 
disease affecting the fox-hounds; but his explanation cannot 
be refuted by groundless assertion—it must be met in a spirit 
of scientific examination, founded on sound practical and 
pathological knowledge. 
The fullest particulars of tbe history of the outbreak are 
now before the public and the profession—its origin, along 
with the symptomatology, and nature, and seat of the disease. 
To what causes can so many deaths, and such a train of vio¬ 
lent symptoms, be ascribed? If Professor Dick’s opinion be 
objected to, let the grounds of its rejection be fairly stated; 
it will never do by unmeaning generalities to dismiss so 
inviting and important a question as Mr. Gamgee has done, 
when he says, Hitherto we have only seen consequences; 
causes and their relations are what we have now to learn.” 
Mr. Gamgee seems to be ignoVant of the first principles of 
physiological pathology regarding the process of digestion, 
viz., that food, wffiich acts as a natural stimulant in the 
healthy state of the assimilating functions, becomes a morbid 
irritant when taken in large quantities, especially if it is of 
a less digestible quality than the food on which the animal 
has been previously accustomed to be fed, and when, taken in 
certain conditions of the system, occasionally produces all 
the effects of a deadly poison in the digestive organs. He is 
XXXVI. * 7 
