220 
CHARLES F. RING. 
membrane, and facilitate the action of the germs, is paralleled by 
the apparently similar action of stubble, which is shown by the 
increase of mortality amongst sheep when placed upon it.”* 
This will assist us in realizing the way in which our redwater, 
horse-sickness, etc., is taken into the system ; and the probability 
of the germs being taken in with particles of dirt on the food 
must not be overlooked. 
It has sometimes occurred to me, however, that the germs of 
these diseases may be taken into the tissues of the grasses them¬ 
selves, and by that means conveyed into the system with the 
nutritive matters. Bacteria have been found in fruit trees, affect¬ 
ing the starchy elements, and causing what has been termed 
“ anthrax of trees.” 
As these germs are found in the soil, and to some extent 
nourished by it, we are justified—by ascertained facts, and in 
the absence of proof to the contrary—in assuming that the con- 
tagium only enters the system by the food, water, or inoculation, 
and not by the respiratory organs at all, and, consequently, that 
the theory of the malarial origin of our horse-sickness—which I 
have always opposed, vide report in “ Natal Almanac,” for 1879 
—cannot be sustained. 
(To be continued.) 
AN INQUIRY 
INTO THE ETIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF TIIE VENEREAL DIS¬ 
EASES OF MAN AND OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
By Chakles F. Ring, M.D. 
{Continued from page 162.) 
Baumler writes : « The character of the disease originally so 
malignant as to occasion universal alarm, before long grew milder. 
Even during the second decennium of the sixteenth century the 
course of the disease had become much less severe ; other symp¬ 
toms than those seen at first gradually became prominent, and by 
the m iddle of the sixteenth century we find various physicians 
* From tlie Veterinarian, 
