794 
NEWS AND ITEMS. 
cerebrospinal meningitis, characterized by paralysis of the 
throat with progressive paresis, and death in a few days, which 
by most observers has been suspected to be due to diseased food, 
but without a single instance of proof. Visiting a farm where 
five horses had died, he secured some of the silage upon which 
the dead horses had been fed, and took it to the hospital of th 
University of Pennsylvania for experiment. Half a bushel of 
it was fed to a nine-year-old gelding, from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2. 
On Nov. 3 there was well-marked paresis of the throat and 
muscles of mastication, twitching of flank muscles, desire to lie 
down and difficulty in arising. Symptoms gradually increased, 
animal dying Nov. 4. A ten-year-old horse healthy but for 
ringbones, was on Nov. 5 given four gallons of water that had 
percolated through a bushel of silage; Nov. 6, three gallons of 
water from same silage ; Nov. 8, six quarts of silage. Nov. 9 
he chewed and swallowed slowly, trembling of muscles, partial 
paralysis of throat, laid down most of time. Nov. 10, found 
dead. Autopsy in each case proved negative except for swell¬ 
ing and dark red, almost black color of mucosa of pharynx and 
glottis, stomach congested and contents putrid ; appeared to be 
an excess of cerebro-spinal fluid. Brain, cord, and meninges 
normal. He suggests the name of u forage poisoning.” 
“ And the Ass Opened his Mouth and Spake.”— 
Some valued correspondent in Washington sent us a copy of 
New York Life of Dec. 6, with the following article marked. 
Out of courtesy to our unknown friend, we reproduce it, with 
the suggestion that in all probability the society reporter who 
wrote the item is more competent to describe the costumes of 
the ladies than he is to predict the future of the horse : “The 
Harvard Veterinary School has given preliminary notice 
of its intention to shut down as soon as its present students 
have finished their course. It doesn’t sav that the autoino- 
bile has killed it. It says—or its friends say for it—that it 
has been running at a loss for eighteen years, and cannot keep 
on without an endowment. Now, no one believes that the 
horse is to be relegated to the museums right away, but it is 
conceivable that the increase and the obvious usefulness of au¬ 
tomobiles, as we know them, and the prospect that they will be 
cheapened, improved and multiplied indefinitely, should dis¬ 
courage hope that any benefactor will consecrate a large sum 
of money for all time to the work of training horse doctors, 
Veterinary instruction was never so good, or so thorough, 
or so scientific, as now, but with the street-car horse abolished. 
