206 
JAMES LAW. 
buestion of the transmission of the disease from ox to ox by con¬ 
tagion in doubt, they cannot by any means be accepted as demon¬ 
strating such contagion. They demonstrate, however, that the 
malady is not readily contagious to sheep, as it had already been 
shown that it was not contagious to swine. This excludes abso¬ 
lutely the idea of foot and mouth disease. 
TRANSMISSION TO YOUNG CALVES. 
In one case mentioned above a young calf in Keith’s herd died 
with severe intestinal lesions while its dam was at the height of 
the disease. At Prebinow’s, April 17,1 found a calf five days old 
(suckled by a cow with sloughing feet) suffering with swollen 
pasterns, rawness between the hoofs on all four feet, and with a 
white, solid, aphthous concretion three-fourths of an inch in di¬ 
ameter covering a red congested surface beneath the tongue on 
the left side. This concretion was not a blister as in foot and 
mouth disease, but resembled rather that observed in thrush 
(Muguet) in young animals or the epithelial hypertrophy of 
rinderpest. Under the microscope it was seen to be made up 
largely of micrococcus and the mycelium of fungi. Prebinow's 
cattle had been fed on millet, hay, and corn stacks. 
The tender age of this last calf forbade the idea that it had 
contracted the disease through feeding on ergoted hay, and the 
fact that it was confined to a small corral, covered to the depth 
of a foot and a half with straw and manure, excluded the possi¬ 
bility of injure from iritating mud or wet. There remained, 
therefore, three possible sources of the disease. 1st, contagion 
from its diseased companions ; 2d, infection from the morbid ex¬ 
cretions of the sick ; and 3d, the ingestion of the original poison 
with the milk furnished by its sick dam. 
The claim of the transmission of a specific contagium is ef¬ 
fectually disposed of in the experiments recorded below. The 
claim of infection from the excretions and morbid products of the 
sick (including the septic matter from the gangrenous limbs) on 
the one part, and the transmission of the original poison (the 
active principles of ergot, perhaps.) on the other, may be held as 
still undetermined, and it is to be hoped that Dr. Holcombe may 
