616 
W. L. WILLIAMS. 
I naturally referred my cases to the eating of the putrefy¬ 
ing maize. They had no access to lathyrns sativa, vetches, 
pea-beans or other leguminous plants. 
The etiology of this disease seems shrouded in the deepest 
mystery, and their is nothing positive as to any influence ex¬ 
erted by climate, season, altitude, housing, etc., but probobly 
to some unknown element occuring accidently but laiely, and 
locally, in food. My own cases and those of Drs. Leather and 
McCall suggest some form of mould, due in, my case, to frozen 
putrefying maize, in the London and Edinburgh outbreaks 
possibly to a mould multiplying on the vetches while some¬ 
what damp on shipboard, but the Montana and Colorado cases 
tend to abrogate this idea and rather suggest a bacterial con¬ 
tamination of food not due to excessive moisture and not con¬ 
fined to grains, since some of these cases occurred on the range. 
Fistulous Withers and Pole-Evil —These two forms of the 
same disease show marked peculiarities in distribution. It oc¬ 
curs in every part of the United States, regardless of tempera¬ 
ture, altitude, humidity, housing, food, breeding, or other envi¬ 
ronments, but it varies greatly in its prevalence and character in 
different localities, and the belief of veterinarians as to etiology 
changes with prevalence and location. 
In the states east of the Mississippi River, the disease is re- 
sonably frequent, but occurs as isolated cases, almost always 
traceable to trammation, exhibiting little or no tendency to spon¬ 
taneous recovery, but yielding somewhat tardily to surgical 
treatment. 
In the southern states east of the Mississippi River, the dis¬ 
ease is more common than in the more northerly states, and its 
increased frequency is variously explained. Some say it is be¬ 
cause of the greater number of mules, which have a great ten¬ 
dency to annoy other animals and especially to bite the withers 
roughly and persistently. Others attribute the prevalence in a 
great measure to the carelessness of negro owners in the matter 
of low stables and ill-fitting harness and saddles. 
In the states west ot the Mississippi River, with but few ex- 
