288 
JAMES LAW. 
product. Tode, Sarcone, Cordier, Imhof, Parmentier, and Tessier 
have fed smut to men, dogs, and birds for periods varying from 
several days tf> several weeks without evil effect. Gerlach, on the 
other hand, fed geese and ducks on smut of wheat, thereby induc¬ 
ing death (of anthrax?). In 1842-’44 lie observed a gangrenous 
fever (and true anthrax?) in horses from feeding on smutty wheat. 
Soon after being put on the wheat they were attacked with indi¬ 
gestion, the faeces were covered with a layer of mucus, they had 
colics daily, and on the slightest occasion (chill or violent exercise) 
they developed a typhous and gangrenous fever (and true anthrax?) 
so that in one day two or three animals sickened and died. He 
gives another instance of the occurrence of abortion in cows from 
the same cause. (Magaz. f. Thierh.) Monati records that the 
peca pellagra of the Italians was unknown until the eighteenth 
century, when maize began to be extensively cultivated. Mazzari, 
Mardi and Lette attribute this disease entirely to smutty corn. 
Balardini found that fowls and dogs suffered when fed on smut, 
and confirms the assertion of Valleuzosca della Fallcadina that 
pellagra was banished from the Bellano Alps by the introduction 
of the potato as the basis of the food of the poor. 
In 1870 the dairy cows of Cornell University were attacked 
with unhealthy gangrenous sores around the coronets, after they 
had been fed some time on corn stalks containing many “ nubbins ” 
affected with smut, but speedily recovered when in accordance 
with my advice the objectionable food was withheld. In 1868 
Prof. John Gamgee fed to each of two cows 21 pounds of smut 
from corn in the course of three weeks, producing no active dis¬ 
ease, but the one animal to which the food was given dry steadily 
fell off in condition, while the one to which it was fed in a moist 
state steadily gained. The iustance of gangrene quoted above as 
occurring in the present season in Yates County, New York, is a 
more recent manifestation of this deleterious action of smut. 
To these may be added the many cases of dry murrain which 
occur yearly in cattle that have been turned out in fields of corn 
stalks when the usual sources of water supply have been sealed up, 
and when drink can only be had irregularly through breaking of 
ice or prolonged hand pumping. There is further reason to sup" 
