HERBERT S. ADAMS. 
590 
with a coat of miasm, which in some cases can be seen by the 
naked eye. I have seen this disease caused by hay cut off a 
bog and very low ground; this kind of grass was a mixed variety 
of all sorts, although the hay was cured well and not soaked by 
rain during; when shaken up was very dusty and had a very un¬ 
pleasant smell. There were two horses that were kept up and 
fed this hay with corn fodder. They had not been at pastifre 
for a year or so; their drinking water came from a well some 
distance from a stable on high ground and was pure. So I at¬ 
tributed the cause of the disease in these horses to the hay on 
which they were fed. One lived three weeks and the other five 
after having been taken sick. Some cases attribute their trouble 
to stagnant and impure water, ditch and bog pastures, or both. 
In several instances where it was caused by stagnant ditch 
water alone, there were cerebro-spinal menginal symptoms in 
mild form exhibited, and after they had subsided malarial fever 
symptoms were very plain. Their drinking place was a ditch of 
surface water in which grew grasses of all kinds and which had 
a very bad smell. Three horses and several cattle were the 
victims of this plague. I did not see these cases until several 
were dead and others past recovery. 
Symptoms .—First stage, acute, is noticed by great weakness 
if the animal is at work, and very soon gives out standing with 
legs spread out to keep from falling, breathing very heavily, 
with a look of extreme distress; after some little time, gets some¬ 
what relieved and sweats in the flanks and behind the ears; 
then the symptoms begin to look more like pericarditis, chills 
with a good deal of severe pain, then a choking cough which 
the animal tries to suppress, high temperature, 104.1-5 to 
107° F., with quick hard pul§e 80 to 100 per minute; fever is 
three to five degrees lower in the morning than in the evening, 
and you can hear a grating sound by putting your ear to the 
side of the chest, characteristic of the disease, pericarditis. 
The next day you see, by standing near the side of the animal, 
pulsations of the jugular vein, caused by the effusion which 
partly fills the pericardium, and you can hear a faint splashing 
