266 
H. C. YARROW. 
Frosted food should always be avoided if possible and sheep 
should not be put on frosted turnips until the day is well 
advanced; it is particularly harmful in pregnant ewes. 
Decomposing and decaying foods are the most injurious of 
all; and it passes my comprehension how an enlightened man can 
in the early spring, when his crop of swedes has exceeded the 
wants of his flocks and herds, take the half or wholly rotten roots 
and scatter them thickly on the pastures for his sheep to eat. 
They may manage to pick out “ tit bits” here and there, but in 
doing so they swallow also a large proportion of decomposing 
matter, than which nothing is more likely to set up septic inflam¬ 
mation of the true stomach and bowels, and produce diarrhoea 
and even blood poisoning. 
Mouldy foods may be placed in the same category with the 
foregoing, and by the light of our greater knowledge of the action 
of fungi in the system we are warranted in attributing many of 
the diseases marked by a depraved condition of the blood to their 
influence. 
Most certainly many moulds are active agents in the produc¬ 
tion of inflammation of the mucous membrane of the bowels, and 
they probably also in some instances cause abortion. 
With impure foods we may class impure water —-a prolific 
source of morbid conditions marked by depravity of the blood, 
and by diarrhoea and dysentery. 
(To be continued .) 
SNAKE BITE AND ITS ANTIDOTE-—II. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH CROTALUS VENOM AND REPUTED ANTI¬ 
DOTES, WITH NOTES ON THE SALIVA OF HELODERMA 
(“ GILA MONSTER.”) 
By H. C. Yaekow, M.D., Curator Dept. Reptiles, U. S. National Museum. 
{From Forest and Stream >). 
(Continued from page 223.) 
After reading de Lacerda’s views regarding the antidotal effect 
of the permanganate of potassa in cases of serpent bite, the writer 
was so firmly convinced of its merits * that, during his travels in 
