■148 On the Yellow Water of Horses. 



ner different from that of a sound horse. A frequent 

 inclination, without the capacity to stool, is perceived. 

 The flanks are tucked and hollow ; and partial shwerings 

 are frequent. The hind legs are stiff, and straddling 

 wide ; but finally all the limbs fail. The horse falls, 

 and in his agonies, works round on his side ; describ- 

 ing a circle, with his hind feet, on the ground, as he is 

 seized with paroxysms at irregular periods. Hence 

 some country people call the disorder " the circles.'''' 

 Sometimes he perspires freely, perhaps from pain, but 

 commonly the skin is dry, and the fever ardent. He 

 will eat at any time ; but cannot swallow much. Some 

 of my horses died with the food in their mouths ; taken 

 in when drawing almost the last breath. The blood is 

 thin, and the serum yellow. It is for the most part 

 dissolved into, water, highly tinged with bile. It de- 

 posits the crassamentumy in a livery mass, of a deep 

 flesh colour, sometimes in unconnected lumps. Some- 

 times the blood is covered with a tough or buffy skin, 

 full of bubbles, or watery blisters. The smelly arising 

 from the sick horses, was remarkably foetid, and differ- 

 ent from that of an healthy horse. 



My dead horses were opened. Nothing was disco- 

 vered the least injured, but their livers; and these were 

 alike affected, but not all in an equal degree. It is an 

 hepatic affection ; and as a farrier who attended my ana- 

 tomical theatre, and had opened many horses with this 

 disease, called it the '"''liver disorder,'''' for want of a more 

 appropriate term. The morbid parts of the liver were 

 hard and scirrhous, and of a darker colour than the sound 

 parts. The contents of the parts affected were drj" and 

 friable ; and might be rabbed to pieces with the fingers. 



