EPIDEMIC CATARRH. 259 



head. The brain is occasionally affected ; the horse grows stupid ; the 

 conjunctiva is alarmingly red; the animal becomes gradually unconscious, 

 and delirium follows. A curious thickening, that may be mistaken for severe 

 sprain, is sometimes observed about the tendons. It is seen under the knee or 

 about the fetlock. It is hot and tender, and the lameness is considerable. The feet 

 occasionally suffer severely. There is a determination of fever to them far more 

 violent than the original disease, and separation of the laminae and descent of the 

 sole ensue. It may be easily imagined how roaring may be connected with 

 epidemic catarrh ; but it is rarely or never followed by glanders. These changes 

 of situation are not fatal, but the practitioner is rather glad to see them, except 

 indeed when the feet are attacked ; for the disease seems inclined to shift its 

 situation or character, and is more easily subdued. 



The most decided character in this disease is debility. Not the stiff, 

 unwilling motion of the horse with pneumonia, and which has been mistaken 

 for debility every muscle being needed for the purposes of respiration, and 

 therefore imperfectly used in locomotion but actual loss of power in the mus- 

 cular system generally. The horse staggers from the second day. He threatens 

 to fall if he is moved. He is sometimes down, permanently down, on the third 

 or fourth day. The emaciation is also occasionally rapid and extreme. 



At length the medical treatment which has been employed succeeds, or 

 nature begins to rally. The cough somewhat subsides ; the pulse assumes its 

 natural standard ; the countenance acquires a little more animation ; the horse 

 will eat a small quantity of some choice thing; and health and strength slowly, 

 very slowly indeed, return : but at other times, when there had been no decided 

 change during the progress of the disease, no manageable metastasis of inflam- 

 mation while there was sufficient power left in the constitution to Struggle with 

 it, a strange exacerbation of symptoms accompanies the closing scene. The 

 extremities become deathy cold ; the flanks heave ; the countenance betrays 

 greater distress ; the membrane of the nose is of an intense red ; and inflam- 

 mation of the substance of the lungs and congestion and death speedily follow. 



At other times the redness of the nostril suddenly disappears ; it becomes 

 purple, livid, dirty brown, and the discharge is bloody and foetid, the breath and 

 all the excretions becoming foetid too. The mild character of the disease gives 

 way to malignant typhus : swellings, and purulent ulcers, spread over different 

 parts of the frame, and the animal is soon destroyed. 



Post-mortem Examination. Examination after death sufficiently displays 

 the real character of the disease, inflammation first of the respiratory 

 passages, and, in fatal or aggravated cases, of the mucous membranes 

 generally. From the pharynx, to the termination of the small intestines, and 

 often including even the larger ones, there will not be a part free from inflam- 

 mation ; the upper part of the trachea will be filled with adhesive spume, and 

 the lining membrane thickened, injected, or ulcerated ; the lining tunic of 

 the bronchi will exhibit unequivocal marks of inflammation ; the substance of 

 the lungs will be engorged, and often inflamed ; the heart will partake of the 

 same affection ; its external coat will be red, or purple, or black, and its internal 

 one will exhibit spots of ecchymosis ; the pericardium will be thickened, and 

 the pericardiac and pleuritic bags will contain an undue quantity of serous, or 

 bloody-serous, or purulent fluid. 



The oesophagus will be inflamed, sometimes ulcerated the stomach always 

 so ; the small intestines will uniformly present patches of inflammation or 

 ulceration. The liver will be inflamed the spleen enlarged no part, indeed, 

 will have escaped ; and if the malady has assumed a typhoid form in its 

 latter stages, the universality and malignancy of the ulceration will b 

 excessive. 



s2 



