322 
a. ARCHIE STOCKWELL. 
occurs from excessive heat, impure air and water supply, etc. 
All this is especially true of lambs, owing to their weaker 
nervous organization and consequent lack of tone, for no ani¬ 
mals are more sensitive to sudden changes of temperature, 
the effects of low, damp, wet pastures, and overcrowding and 
improper shelter. Neither are the surroundings of the parent 
without influence; in which category may be enumerated 
exposure, overwork, improper shelter and food, and all causes 
that tend to modify or deteriorate the lacteal supply, or to 
divert nourishment from the lacteal apparatus to supply the 
general demands of the economy of the mother. This last is 
more provocative of scours in colts than is generally surmised, 
though over-heating of cows has long been held a prime factor 
in procuring the same malady in calves. True, most breeders 
and agriculturists assume a working mare ensures a more 
healthy foal, but this is true only within limits, and in so far 
as labor tends to restrain the excessive production of casein 
and fat in the milk. Too scanty lacteal supply, or milk that 
is greatly impoverished, forces the suckling to seek other 
foods, for the digestion of which its stomach and duodenum 
are illy fitted; profuse supply also tends to the same end if 
devoid of the proper amount of water. 
PATHOLOGY. 
Simple diarrhoeas as a rule are not febrile maladies per se, 
(though by neglect they may become so) but rather partake of 
the nature of symptoms and warnings; they are efforts of 
Nature to relieve the economy of some evil in the way of ex¬ 
cess, or poisonous or irritating material, and when such obtain, 
if not so profuse as to threaten exhaustion, are apt to be self¬ 
limited and beneficial. In such there are no pathological 
changes, the flux being of the crapulose variety, characterized 
by discharges every way normal save as to fluidity, requiring 
little or no treatment other than restriction and dilution of 
food. 
Acute diarrhoeas are alimentary, and may be also infectious. 
If of the former class, the dejections are yellow in color, small 
in amount, and contain much undigested matter—casein, fat 
