Calomel should also be given in 1-dram doses twice a
day for three days, and in severe cases, involving the respiratory tract, a
powder containing ferrous sulphate, quinin, and subnitrate of bismuth,
given twice a day, will be found beneficial. At the same time it must be
remembered that much greater success is to be looked for in the preventive
treatment. This consists in the removal of the healthy from the infected
animals (not vice versa) and thorough cleaning and disinfecting of the
contaminated stables. If the floors are low and damp, they should be raised
and made dry. If this can not be done, place a layer of cement under the
stable floor to prevent water from entering from below. The stable should
be well ventilated and the soil in the pastures thoroughly drained. If this
is carefully carried out, the contagion should be destroyed and the danger
of the reappearance of the disease in a great measure lessened.

MALIGNANT EDEMA.

Malignant edema, also termed gangrenous septicemia, is an acute,
inflammatory disease of domestic and wild animals, resulting from the
introduction of a specific organism into the deep connective tissues of a
susceptible animal and proving fatal in many instances within 24 to 48
hours. The disease may be inoculated from one animal to another, but only
by inserting the virus deeply below the skin. It is infrequently met with
in cattle, but may follow operating wounds, as roweling, castration, and
phlebotomy, which have become infected with septic matter, soil, or unclean
instruments. In the pathological laboratory of the Bureau of Animal
Industry the organism has also been obtained from the infected muscles of a
calf that was supposed to have died of blackleg, and, as a result, all
blackleg virus is thoroughly tested before it is made into blackleg vaccine
in order to exclude the malignant-edema organism. The essential cause of
malignant edema is a long, slender, motile, spore-bearing bacillus,
resembling the bacillus of blackleg, and which can develop only in the
absence of the atmosphere. Unlike the bacilli of anthrax and blackleg,
which are confined to certain districts, this organism is widely
distributed and found in ordinary garden soil, foul water, and in the
normal intestinal tract of the herbivora. It may be brought to the surface
of the soil by growing plants, rains, winds, or burrowing insects and
rodents. In animals that have succumbed to the disease the germ is confined
to t