IS IT A VEGETABLE TOXICUM ? 
83 ! 
the disease, each in its turn, during a period (from first to last) 
of about three weeks, living from two to five days, and died. I 
believe the cause to be a specific one, but shall not attempt to 
define it. To convince myself that this could not be impaction 
I gave a cathartic, which acted promptly, but symptoms never 
abated. I believe it possible that some organism had invaded 
the body ; likely by way of alimentary tract, as their appetite 
had been abnormal after a winter’s semi-starvation, and as they 
had taken of some provender that had lain and decomposed 
through the winter—(and possibly in this was a germ with 
power of production)—as well as the first signs of grass and 
early vegetation. It might easily be accounted for, but whether 
correct or not is largely speculative. But thanks to our journals 
and societies, for if it was it not for them we might think each 
year that we had discovered a new disease unknown to others ; 
for our standard works and text-books do not contain them all. 
Pardon me, but I consider no man a local practitioner that 
never reports anything, i. e., if he has a subject out of the regu¬ 
lar line, of benefit to his fellow-practitioner or public health, 
for it is only in this manner that unclassified diseases are kept 
track of and intelligently dealt with. 
IS IT A VEGETABLE TOXICUM? 
By Dr. J. C. Meyers, Sr., V.S., Cincinnati, O. 
(A paper read before the Ohio State Veterinary Medical Association.) 
My attention was attracted by a report in the daily papers 
of a disease, apparently caused by poison, among dairy cattle in 
a suburb of Hamilton. As the papers stated, twenty-five out of 
a ford of sixty, died. 
Being interested, I telephoned to a regular veterinarian of 
Hamilton, but nothing further could be learned, as he was not 
the veterinarian in charge. 
