710 CAMELS WITH SOUTH AFGHAN EXPEDITION, 1878-9. 
five mannds or four hundred pounds, did not appear to be 
too great for a healthy and matured camel. 
The systematic way of investigating disease is first, if fatal, 
to ascertain by ^post-mortem examination the organs involved 
and the nature of the lesions; we next look’around for 
predisposing causes; thirdly, exciting causes claim our atten- 
tion. Having informed ourselves on these matters, we con¬ 
sider the best means of obviating the malady in healthy 
animals, a matter of even greater importance than curing 
those already affected. I do not intend to intimate that we 
were powerless with regard to treatment of the sick, but 
the means supplied were very scanty ; the most simple and 
necessary drugs w^ere not to be had. If veterinary super¬ 
vision had been provided surely this would not have been 
the case. On joining the 15th Hussars at Robart, two 
days’ march above Candahar, I found the regiment almost 
destitute of veterinary medicines and surgical means; they 
had been duly applied for, and as duly despatched by the 
principal veterinary surgeon, but never reached us, although 
the invoice arrived punctually; these, if sent to the head 
of a department at Candahar, would, in all probability, not 
have miscarried, and he would have facilitated their being 
forwarded to the corps requiring them. 
Post-mortem examinations .—These revealed in every case 
that came under my notice pulmonary disease in almost all 
its varieties at Quetta, where the first were made; acute 
congestion and inflammation of lungs were evidently the 
causes of death, and such was the case in all instances 
during the inclement weather on the -way up to Candahar. 
On the homeward journey, when the atmosphere was more 
genial, it was the chronic results which proved fatal. These 
chronic affections may be familiarly understood by the term 
consumption, not that the subjects showed the true lesions 
of phthisis, as it is medically called, but certainly corresponding 
with the more extended meaning of the word, as a “ wasting 
away.” Dense deposits, called tubercles, were found; 
abscesses in the substance of the lungs, named vomicae; con¬ 
densation, producing a liver-like appearance, denominated 
hepatisation; many parasites of the order, classed hydatids; 
and the caseous degeneration of blood, constituting a kind 
of embolism, were here located. An examination of the 
digestive organs certainly did not indicate structural de¬ 
rangement, but while the rumen was filled with ingesta, the 
second, third, and fourth stomachs, together with the intes¬ 
tines, were remarkably empty, showing that the food had 
collected in the first stomach, but that general debility 
