BLOOD-POISONING IN MAN AND ANIMALS. 
199 
We confess we are not much surprised at these results. 
In September, 1871, Mr. Crookes reported that the amount 
of ammonia contained in the effluent water was almost 
exactly the same as that of the filtered sewage before preci¬ 
pitation. This report, strange to say, has been issued in the 
form of a pamphlet by the company ! We should have 
thought that they would have burnt it at once. 
Mr. Keates reports more favourably of the sanitary than 
the commercial value of the A. B. C. process. The effluent 
water was almost invariably bright and free from disagreeable 
smell, and only putrefied to a slight extent on keeping. 
There w T ould evidently be no harm in discharging such water 
into a river, provided, of course, that the river was not to be 
used for water-supply. Fish, we are informed, thrive in the 
effluent w r ater, and altogether it may be freely admitted that 
the A. B. C. is an excellent clarifying process, although we 
are forced to deny it any value as a means of utilising 
sewage.— The Lancet . 
BLOOD-POISONING IN MAN AND ANIMALS. 
By Nathaniel Alcock, Assistant-Surgeon 35th Regiment. 
A farmer in the south-eastern part of Ireland had lost 
three cows from a sudden and inexplicable illness which ter¬ 
minated fatally in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. 
No cattle-plague existed in the vicinity, nor had he added 
any strange animals lately to his stock. A fourth cow, which 
presented no signs of the disease on Friday evening, was 
attacked in the night, and died on the day following. A 
veterinary surgeon was summoned, and the farmer, a young, 
healthy, and most intelligent man, opened the carcase for in¬ 
spection. In so doing he wounded his right thumb slightly 
against a spiculum of bone, but proceeded with the dissec¬ 
tion regardless of the scratch. No clue to the nature of the 
disease was found, except an enlarged and engorged condition 
of the spleen. All other organs were apparently healthy, and 
the veterinary surgeon thereupon pronounced the cause of 
death to be “ splenic apoplexy.” Among the lookers on at 
the examination of the cow were a sow, a terrier, and a grey¬ 
hound, and when the spleen, which was fixed on as the 
offending organ, was cut up for minute investigation, they 
devoured the pieces that were thrown aside. On the fol¬ 
lowing evening, about 4 o^clock p. m., the sow was found 
dead, and later on in the night the terrier also. On the next 
