lmost any other cause.

"The malady lingers in different countries, in proportion to its want of
power to accomplish at once all its devastation.

"After this time, there are few satisfactory accounts of these diseases
for more than five centuries. We only know that, occasionally suspending
their ravages,--or, rather, visiting new districts when they had ceased
to desolate others--they have continued to be objects of terror and
instruments of devastation, even unto the present day; and it is only
within a few years that they have been really understood, and have
become, to a certain degree, manageable."

In the United States, epizooetic diseases have been of frequent
occurrence; but, owing to the want of properly qualified veterinary
surgeons, they have not, until within a very recent period, been
properly described or understood. The day however, is fast approaching
when this void will be filled, and when epizooetic and other diseases
will be correctly noted and recorded. The necessity for this must have
been forcibly impressed upon the minds of the inhabitants of our country
from the experience of the last ten or twelve years.

Respecting the late epizooetic among cattle in Portage County, Ohio,
William Pierce, V.S., of Ravenna, thus describes the symptoms as they
appeared, in a letter to the author: "A highly-colored appearance of the
sclerotic coat of the eye, also of the _conjunctiva_ (a lining membrane
of the eyelid) and the Schneiderian membrane of the nose; a high animal
heat about the head and horns; a highly inflammatory condition of the
blood; contraction of all the abdominal viscera; hurried respiration;
great prostration and nervous debility; lameness; followed by gangrene
of the extremity of the tail, and the hind-feet; terminating in
mortification and death."

Mr. Pierce is convinced that these symptoms are produced by the
continued use of the ergot, or spur of the June grass,--the effects
being similar to those produced upon the human family by long-continued
use of ergot of rye. This disease assumes both an acute and chronic
form.

The same gentleman also says: "Ordinary observers, as well as those who
claim to be scientific, have entertained very conflicting opinions as to
its general character; some regarding it as epizooetic, others as
contagious; some attributing it to atmospheric influence, others to
foulings in the stable or yard. Others, again, attribute it to freezing
of the feet in winte