THE RECENT CATTLE DISEASE IN KANSAS. 
253 
MUDDY YARDS AS A SUPPOSED CAUSE. 
In the different herds the disease appeared and progressed in¬ 
differently as to the continuance of frost or thaw, as to whether 
the limbs were clean and dry, or plastered over with mud. In the 
one calf (Prebinow’s) which I saw in the earliest stage of the dis¬ 
ease, the interdigital spaces were clean, contact with mud having 
been practically impossible. Again, the immersion of the feet in 
mud could not account for the gangrene of tail and ears, nor for 
the lesions in the mouth. 
IMPURE DRINKING-WATER AS A SUPPOSED CAUSE. 
That the pond water supplied to certain herds was impure, 
having been, in part at least, the product of surface-drainage of 
the yard, is to be acknowledged. The specimens which I received 
from some of these ponds have a dirty-whitish opacity, and 
abound in diatoms, infusoria, micrococci, bacteria, and decom¬ 
posing organic matter. The water had this further peculiarity, 
that when brought in contact with the blood of man or animal, it 
instantly dissolved all the red globules, leaving only a few white 
globules to be detected by the microscope. On chemical examin¬ 
ation the water was found to contain a quantity of nitrites which 
have this peculiar destructive action on the blood; but as water 
from the hotel pumps at Neosho Falls contained bacteria in large 
numbers, and destroyed the blood globules in the same manner, 
yet had not proved injurious to the animals drinking it, any idea 
of the causation of the disease by this water must be dismissed. 
Moreover, this power of rapidly destroying the blood globules was 
found to be inherent alike in the water of Keith’s well and of 
Falls Creek, Tompkins County, New York, the latter being sup¬ 
plied to many cattle that furnished no indications of this disease. 
It she uld be added that a special physiological action of the ni¬ 
trites is to induce dilatation of the capillary blood-vessels, a con¬ 
dition apparently opposed to that of the shrunken, dried, and 
horny tissues of dry gangrene. Everything tends to exclude the 
water from the list of possible causes. 
ERGOTED HAY OR SMUTTY CORN AS THE CAUSE. 
In favor of the theory of ergot as the cause of the affection 
which has been investigated in the West, it may be stated— 
