A PECULIAR DISEASE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11805, 14 December 1912, Page 3

A PECULIAR DISEASE.

HORSES DYING BY HUNDREDS. According to American files, an unknown disease is causing mucli mortality amongst horses in Kansas. At the time the mail left at the end of September the disease was still spreading. The names cerebro-spinal meningitis and forage poisoning are applied to the disease, although its precise nature seems not to bo understood and no way has been found of curing it. . It is said to have appeared in threefourths of the counties of Kansas, where estimates place the loss at over 25,000 horses already. In Nebraska it is thought about 8000 horses have died, and many have died in Colorado, while some cases have developed in lowa even to the eastern part of the State. From "reports of 250 veterinarians who met at Lincoln, Nebraska, to consider the disease, it appeared that it most frequently attacks work horses that are turned out at nights on pasture and also those pastured on low damp land. Veterinarians of the States affected and also many from adjoining States and the Government Bureau of Animal Industry are studying the disease. A false report was circulated that injections of tetanus anti-toxin had cured several cases, but so far oiily preventive measures have really proved effective. The disease does not seem to be contagious, but to be acquired from eating damaged feed of this year's growth. Accordingly it is recommended that horses in affected districts be kept off pastures and fed sound grain and hay of last year's production or feed shipped in from localities where no cases of this disease have occurred. The State authorities do not generally contemplate establishing quarantines against horses from affected States, as it seems clear that the feed and not the animals convey the disease.