310 
THE ETIOLOGY OF BLACKLEG, ETC. 
Aisne, under the presidency of M. Yvart, and at the expense 
of the government, to determine if sang de rate was caused 
by abundant feeding on leguminous fodder. Without in¬ 
voking the negative results of experiments made outside 
Eure and Loire, we will say that, at the request of the 
Concile-General of the department, and by the efforts of the 
Prefet, M. Jaubert, a similar commission was appointed to 
study this disease in all its details. Honoured by forming 
part of this commission, we are going to show the important 
results obtained relative to this question. 
The experiments undertaken for this purpose were made 
without interruption during four years, from 1858 to 1861, 
on more than 400 sheep, under the direction of the honor¬ 
able founder of the Agricultural Union, which at this period 
(1857) had lost in less than two months the half of its flock. 
These experiments were commenced in the first days of 
July, 1858, and here is a summary of them, and circumstances 
under which they took place. 
A flock of 159 sheep were divided into three equal lots, 
and, as much as possible, with regard to age, state of health, 
and condition. 
The lot A, intended as a standard for comparison, were 
fed according to the ordinary custom in Beauce. 
The lot B received a substantial nourishment with corn 
and leguminous fodder, considered as a principal deteriorating 
cause of sang de rate— lucern, vetches, wheat straw imper¬ 
fectly thrashed, &c. 
The lot C were nourished on food reputed up to that time 
as preservative from sang de rate . They lived on green rye, 
on after-grass still green; in summer and during the latter 
part of the year on natural meadows; and in winter they 
received straw deprived of corn, the after-grass of natural 
meadows, and one to two kilogrammes of red beets every 
day. 
Under the influence of these various foods, the three lots 
w r ere, on the 1st November, four months after the commence¬ 
ment of the experiment, in about the same condition. At 
the end of the year, on the contrary, the medium weight of 
the beasts of the lots B and C increased 8 kilog. 500 grammes, 
whilst lot A remained stationary. 
In the autumn of 1859, about eighteen months after the 
commencement of the experiment, the lot A was still inferior 
to the other two lots B and C, which always remained in 
about the same condition. 
Now that we have shown the hygienic result of these 
various modes of feeding, we will go on to consider the mor- 
