ARSENICAL POISONING FROM SMELTER SMOKE. 
415 
Washoe smelter commenced to operate many horses that were in 
pastures in the valley suffered form sore noses. The sore nose 
was observed in some horses on the Bliss ranch. Stated in or¬ 
dinary language, the sore nose ailment consists of a sort of ulcer, 
from one to three inches in length, on the septum in the direction 
of the upper lip. and appears as if it was produced by a burn, or 
an irritating medicinal blister, or acid, the ulcer often containing 
a large piece of dead skin tissue, in a few instances involving the 
lining membrane of the nose, and penetrating the partition be¬ 
tween the nostrils. The horses affected, generally speaking, also 
had garlicky breaths, rough coats, and suffered from diarrhoea; 
some were thin, some were quite easily exhausted, and many ap¬ 
peared to be unthrifty. The ulcers would heal with ordinary 
stable care, and the animal would nearly always recover if taken 
away from the valley pastures. Numbers of horses so affected 
were killed for examination, and post mortem investigations 
disclosed lesions affecting the stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, 
spleen, heart, respiratory organs, and membranes of the brain. 
Chemical analyses of certain animal tissues were also made by 
experts, and more or less arsenic trioxide found. Many cattle also 
were affected. None of the cattle had sore noses. Witnesses say 
that this was because cattle can clean their nostrils with their 
tongues, while horses cannot. Some of the symptoms manifested 
in cattle were garlicky breaths, rough coats, coughs, tucked up 
bellies, scouring and drooling. Eliminating the sore nose, the 
lesions found in the cattle after death were generally similar to 
those found in the horses. In one of a number of steers that had 
been kept by defendants for experimental purposes on the Bliss 
pastures, which was killed for examination by Dr. Formad, of 
the government service, there were found vascular changes, epi¬ 
thelial changes, and connective tissue changes, which were evi¬ 
dently caused by an irritant poison. 
“ By again reasoning from facts seen and testified to by plain 
witnesses, and weighing what things were so actually seen with 
what experts have said, and with what experiments have been 
made, out of the mass of evidence, I must conclude that the lesions 
observed were caused by the irritant or corrosive poison arsenic. 
