MAD ITCH, OR ENZOOTIC MENINGITIS. 491 
neons. The cause, according to my judgment, was in the stable 
atmosphere, which was poisoned by swine suffering with abdomi¬ 
nal typhus, to which about a dozen per day succumbed. Several 
hundred of these grunters were housed under the same roof with 
the cattle, and only separated from them by a four-foot-high 
fence. 
A colleague who was also consulted attributed the disease to 
the feed, (slop) which, however, is refuted by the fact that the 
surplus slop, during the prevalence of this enzooty, was taken 
away by the neighboring dairymen, as they had done for years, 
and fed to their cows, without experiencing the least ill effect. 
In the latter part of November and beginning of December, 
1871, I again had occasion to record a similar complaint in anoth¬ 
er distillery stable, about a half block from the one mentioned 
above. 
To give the details of these cases would be merely a recapitu¬ 
lation of the above, as the type of the disease deviated but little, 
the only noteworthy difference being the shorter duration of suffer¬ 
ing, thirty-one hours being the maximum. 
One day 1 found the premises vacated, thus ending my obser¬ 
vations. The majority of the cattle being fat, or in good condi¬ 
tion, it may be readily surmised what became of them. At that 
time the enforcement of sanitary laws was a dead letter. 
As to the probable cause alluded to before—This second lot 
was exposed to similar influences as the first, so far as the inhala¬ 
tion of impure air is concerned, though the pens of these cattle 
were separated from those of the hogs by a frame partition, but 
connected by a door. Through this opening the men who had 
charge of the stock moved to and fro all day, thus allowing the 
air impregnated with unhealthy vapors and miasma arising from 
the exhalation and fermentation of the excrements of these hogs 
afflicted with the same plague as the first lot, to pass into the 
oxen’s stable, rendering the atmosphere which the cattle were 
obliged to inspire so noxious that the fatal result ensued, as I 
imagine, by a decomposition of the blood and parese of the ner¬ 
vous system. 
My opinion was based mainly on the fact, that those standing 
