THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. LIII. 
No. 631. 
JULY, 1880. 
Fourth Series, 
No. 307. 
Communications and Cases. 
REMARKS ON HAY POISONING. 
By T. Spencer Cobbold, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of 
Botany, Royal Veterinary College. 
Until I recently perused Professor E. Semmer’s brief 
notice in the May number of the Revue fur Thierheilkunde 
und Thierzuckt it never occurred to me that any deleterious 
properties resided in the nearest allies of our little caryo- 
phyllaceous chickweeds. The subject is so important in rela¬ 
tion to hay-poisoning, and it is so likely that injurious effects 
from this source may have been overlooked in this country, 
that I think it desirable to call the attention of the vete¬ 
rinary profession to the matter. According to Semmer (who 
quotes from observations by Renelt and Paljuta, those by the 
former authority being recorded in the Archiv. f. Thierheilk. 3 
published at St. Petersburg, 1879) Mr. Renelt describes 
several cases of poisoning from hay which contained much 
Stellaria (starwort). It is not expressly stated that the ani¬ 
mals affected in Renelt’s cases were cattle, but the title of the 
paper implies as much ( Ueber den Einfluss des Sternkrautes 
auf die Hausthiere ). The motion of the animals was awk¬ 
ward, their hinder parts weak and the extremities oedematous. 
There was fever, sweating, redness of the conjunctiva, a stupe¬ 
fied condition, with frequent inability to stand or walk. The 
liii. 31 
