The most formidable of the diseases attributed to the use of diseased grain is cerebro-spinal meningitis, commonly known as spotted or blanoid fever. The disease is rare in England, but is frequently epidemic in the United States, in Ireland, and on the Continent. In 1873, in the State of Massachusetts alone, 747 persons died of it, and other epidemics even more fatal have lately occurred in New York and Michigan. The disease is a nervous fever attended with convulsions, the pathological lesion being congestion and inflammation of the membrane of the spinal cord and brain. Dr. Richardson in writing on the nature and causes of spotted fever concludes that it is due to the use of diseased vegetable substances, especially grain, and from a careful analysis of the statistics of this disease reported by the Michigan State Board of Health considers it demonstrated that "under favoring condition for its action diseased grain received as a food is the primary cause of the phenomena which characterize the disease." These views are substantiated by the experiments of Dr. H. Day, who found that by feeding rabbits on unsound grain, spasmodic affections were produced, due to inflammation of the membranes of the spinal cord and brain. In warm climates, pellagra or Italian leprosy is said to be produced by eating diseased maize, which forms the principal article of food among the poorer classes of the rural districts. Pellagra is epidemic in northern Italy and the south of France. The disease is manifested by a redness and discoloration of the exposed parts of the body. It is most active during the hot weather, the inflammation subsiding in the winter, leaving a pigmentation of the skin. Each year the symptoms become more alarming, nervous disorders finally setting in, and a large number die insane. The disease is most prevalent in the country. In the towns, where maize is supplemented by other articles of food, it does not exist.