of putting away in a dry place the object removed with the knife, that a satisfactory recovery might be ensured.

In themselves, these superstitions and delusions are harmless enough, and might be treasured as mementos of a credulous and imaginative past, but as they all tend to distract attention from the real dangers of each particular case, and the precautions necessary, they ought to be forever discarded. It is not among the members of this old and intelligent Society that such delusions can find a resting place, yet it is no less the duty of every member to disabuse the mind of any neighbor less favored in an educational point of view. The mass or bezoar will not harm the plague-stricken animals, but they divert attention from the all important separation of healthy and diseased, and from the cleansing and disinfection so essential to the checking of the malady. The waiting for a favorable influence of the stars, and the particular disposal of the excised fleshy mass, may be a matter of indifference as regards the result, but the postponement of a surgical operation from favorable weather to a tempestuous season, and the preservation of a mass of putrifying animal matter in the same stable in which the wounded animal stands, are among the best possible means to secure unhealthy action, or even gangrene, in the sore. There are certain other delusions, entertained by many stock owners, which cannot claim even the poor excuse of superstition. These refer mainly to hollow-horn, horn-ail, tail-ail, and black-tooth. I would not venture to mention these redoubtable ailments, but for the unaccountable prevalence of the inhuman practices resorted to for their cure, and while I indulge the hope that no member of the New York State Agricultural Society may have been guilty of the barbarities alluded to, I trust that my words may come under the notice of others who have unwittingly and against their better natures been led astray by the prevailing errors.

Some one has said that horn-ail is a truly national disorder, and such it may justly be held, inasmuch as in no other country do cattle require to have their horns perforated with gimlet holes, and stuffed and rubbed with heating agents, to restore them to soundness. But what is the true state of the case? In all countries alike, the horn is hollow in the healthy, full grown animal. But instead of this hollow condition proving a source of trouble, it adds to the comfort of the animal, and, indeed, is almost essential to its existence. In the young and growing calf, the framework of the skull is to a large extent membranous, and hence lighter than a bony structure of the same size would be. But as earthy salts are deposited in these membranes, and

as they are transformed into true bone, the weight of the head is cor respondingly increased, and without some compensating device would become an unwieldy burden. To obviate this, the Divine Architect establishes a process of excavation in the bony mass, which separates the inner layer from the outer, and leaves between a hollow cavity which communicates freely with the nostrils. As development proceeds, as the head increases in bulk, and as the framework of the skull becomes more exclusively bony, there advances in equal ratio the process of excavation, until over the entire forehead the inner and outer plates of bone become reduced to, comparatively, mere shells, with a wide and open intervening cavity. This scooping out process extends for some distance over the ridge forming the summit of the head, and into the conical bony supports of the horns, as well as downward in front of each eye and deeply into the center of the skull beneath the cranium, so that all the otherwise heavy parts are attenuated and lightened, and while the head maintains its massiveness and symmetry, the animal can use it with ease, and even with gracefulness. Nor is it lightness and symmetry alone that are secured by this arrangement. As the outer plate is connected with the inner by delicate pillars of bone, possessing, as all bone does, a certain amount of elasticity, we have here interposed between this outer plate of bone and the brain, a most admirable means of warding off from this vital organ those concussions to which the forehead and horns are of necessity subjected when used as weapons, offensive or defensive. The forehead, moreover, by this peculiarity in structure, similar in some respects to the plates of iron ships bent over at right angles at their borders to increase their power of resistance, acquires a strength altogether disproportionate to the amount of bony matter employed in its construction. The whole condition, then, of hollow face and hollow horn, in place of demanding to be combated by cruel surgical operations, presents to him who will view it aright one of the most beautiful examples of creative wisdom, in the adaptation of means to ends at once so varied and so vital.

In the young calf and growing animal, then, a hollow horn is not a natural condition, but as it increases in size its bony support becomes scooped out internally, and the older the animal the larger becomes this internal cavity and the thinner the investing plate of bone. In cases of inflammation of the lining membrane of this cavity, from severe catarrh, or from direct injury when the yoke is attached to the horns, the cavity alike of the horn and the forehead may be filled up with matter, which finds only a slow and imperfect exit by the nose.

But this is manifestly a condition diametrically opposed to hollowhorn, and is moreover a very rare affection. A disease of this kind is recognized by the discharge from the nose of whiteish or yellowish matter, and sometimes of pure blood, by the heat and tenderness of the root of the horns and forehead, by the hanging head, the partially closed eyes, the great dullness and listlessness and by the absence of a hollow sound when the forehead is gently tapped with the tip of the middle finger. It demands as treatment absolute rest, a dose of opening medicine, a semi-liquid, non-stimulating diet, the application of cold water, or even hot fomentations, steadily maintained, to the forehead, steaming of the nostrils by hot water vapor, and in obstinate cases the opening of the cavity in the interval between the eyes, and the syringing of it out daily with a mild astringent lotion until a healthy action has been established. But this disorder will never warrant the boring of the horns with a gimlet. If the horn were cut off by the root, as is done by a certain French author, the act might be defended on the ground of utility, but the boring of the horns entails great suffering without the slightest advantage, and if indefensibly cruel and hurtful in the diseased state of the parts, how much more so in the healthy?

But let me draw attention for a moment to the utter cruelty, uselessness and injury of this practice. First, note the structures involved in the gimlet wound. Beneath the horn, which is insensible to pain, there are, first, the highly sensitive and unyielding fibrous layer and its vascular folds, by which the horn is so firmly bound to the supporting bony process. Next there is the spongy, vascular and sensitive bone, with its outer and inner nutrient fibrous membranes. And lastly, the delicately sensitive mucous membrane, which lines the cavity of the bony process and the forehead. All of these vascular structures, with the exception of the mucous membrane, have a very close and resistant texture, and do not readily yield to exudation and swelling, so that inflammation seated in them is associated with exquisite pain. This suffering is increased by the compression of the inflamed parts by the investing and unyielding horn. The rude tearing of these tender and susceptible structures by the gimlet can scarcely fail to set up inflammation, and an amount of attendant pain and suffering which may be partially appreciated by those who have had a whitlow under the finger nail. To those who have suffered from this, I need not appeal against the cruelties practiced for the imaginary horn-ail. But the ox suffers more than the human being because of the close proximity of the disease to more vital parts, and

because the structures are of a closer texture and yield less readily to exudation than in the case of the human finger. The exudations and matter pent up between the unyielding bone below, the resistant horn above, and the dense fibrous structures around, are only too well calculated to produce excruciating agony. The tearing of these sensitive structures, and the rubbing in of pepper and other irritants, might be truthfully branded as fiendish, but that the act is the offspring of ignorance, and practiced, however mistakenly, as a means of cure.

But after all, what is the condition known as horn-ail? In seeking to answer that question I have gone into the history of the disease, and find that it first occurred in 1771, as an epizootic, in the neighborhood of Boston. Mr. Cotton Taffts thus describes it in the first volume of "Memoirs of the American Academy of Science," page 529: "In 1771, a mortal distemper prevailed among foxes, and greatly reduced their numbers. About this time, or not long after, a distemper appeared among neat cattle, which destroyed many, and has continued to this day. The distempers that befell these various kinds of animals were said not to have been known in the country before, more especially that which has affected neat cattle, and which has generally been considered as a new disease. It is commonly called the horn distemper. Cows are more especially subject to it; oxen but seldom; bulls are said to be exempt from it, also steers and heifers under three years of age. It is a disease which affects the internal substance of the horn, commonly called the pith, insensibly wastes it, and leaves the horn hollow. The pith is a spongy bone, whose cells are filled with an unctuous matter; it is furnished with a great number of small blood-vessels, is overspread with a thin membrane, and appears to be united by suture to the bones of the head, and is projected to a point. This spongy bone, in the horn distemper, is sometimes partly and sometimes entirely wasted. The horn loses its natural heat, and a degree of coldness is evident upon handling it. When it is only in one horn (which is often the case), a manifest difference between the one and the other will be perceived, and in all cases a want of natural heat will be apparent. Wherever this is found, there is no room to doubt of the disorder being present, yet it is seldom suspected without a particular acquaintance with other symptoms that commonly attend this distemper; and for want of knowing these the farmer has often lost his cattle, not even suspecting the evil. The symptoms are, a dullness in the countenance of the beast, a sluggishness in moving, a heaviness

of the eyes, a failure of appetite, an inclination to lay down, an aversion to rise, and, when accompanied with an inflammation of the brain, a giddiness and frequent tossing of the head; besides, the limbs are sometimes affected with stiffness like a rheumatism, and in cows the milk often fails, the udder is hard, and in almost all cases there is a sudden wasting of the flesh." He adds: "(Neat cattle arc subject to a disorder commonly called the tail-sickness, which is a wasting of the bony substance of the tail; and if not cut off, or dilated as far as the defect reaches, often proves fatal. It frequently accompanies the horn distemper.) From the number of cows seized by this distemper in the space of a fortnight, a suspicion arose that the distemper was infectious. Time, however, has shown that it is not so, at least in any great degree; for it frequently happens that among many cattle herding together, one of them shall have the distemper and the others shall remain in perfect health." He goes on to describe the cure of the disease by the now time-honored gimlet surgery.

Our knowledge of the disease has not advanced since the days of Cotton Taffts. From all available descriptions of the malady, and from the numerous cases that have been shown me, I can learn of no specific symptom, in addition to those of general ill health, but extreme coldness or warmth of the horns. To enable us to appreciate the importance of these symptoms, let us note the following facts: The vascular structures beneath the horn, like those of the skin generally, wherever an abundance of epidermic productions are secreted, are very abundantly supplied with blood. This applies alike to the human scalp, the heels of the heavy breeds of horses, or the structures secreting the nails of man, the claws of carnivora, the hoof of the horse, or the horns of cattle. From this abundance of blood the horns participate in all the changes of temperature experienced by the blood and body at large, and their excessive heat affords conclusive evidence of the existence of fever. But as they are superficial structures, they equally participate in the chill or shivering fit by which the fever is ushered in, and when the blood is repelled from the contracted vessels in the integument to accumulate around internal organs. The coldness of the horn, then, is merely a concomitant of that of the skin when fever is being manifested by its first outward symptom, a chill or staring coat. Unnatural heat of the horn is equally an exponent of a morbid rise of temperature in the blood and body at large, a constant and essential condition of fever. Alterna tions from heat to cold, and the reverse, on the part of the horns, like