REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON DISEASE. 
557 
upon the corn fodder, and the wheat-straw for mainten¬ 
ance, lost horses with this disease ; one instance in partic¬ 
ular, the history of which attracted my attention, was related 
to me by Mr. McCully, one of the most progressive farmers 
in that community. He lost six animals with this disease, 
and had five remaining, all of which had been affected three 
or four times. The first one became affected while he was 
feeding corn fodder in the stable. It died in about a week, 
at which time the second one was showing signs of the dis¬ 
ease. He then took his horses out of the barn, cleaned up all 
the manure and accumulations under the mangers, hauled in 
some fresh dirt, and left the stable empty for several weeks, 
in the meantime feeding his horses in the yard on fodder 
thrown up in the hay rack. After awhile he discontinued 
feeding the fodder in this manner, but threw it out on the 
ground to these animals. A few days later some of them 
commenced to manifest disease about the nose and mouth. 
He then took them back into the barn; but lost one more be¬ 
fore the remainder recovered. He then ceased feeding fod¬ 
der and fed them on ear corn and wheat-straw. They seemed 
to do well for a time, and he thought all danger was passed 
and commenced to feed fodder again, when the disease re¬ 
curred as before. Now this is the history that was practi¬ 
cally related by every one, with the exception that some 
attributed it to the feeding of wheat-straw, while others 
thought it was communicated by fodder only. My first im¬ 
pression was that it was due to some rust or mould fungus 
that grew upon vegetation the past season, but as there was 
such an entire absence of mycotic gastritis, or enteritis, I 
could not make up my mind that this was the ordinary form 
of disease resulting from such causes only. It appeared the 
animals that were furnished the smallest amount of nutritive 
food substances were the ones that became fatally affected, 
indicating, that the impoverished condition of the system 
was unable to resist this disease-producing cause. 
(To be continued .) 
