202 EPIDEMIC CATARRK. 



alaru. or even mucn notice, though a person entered his abode vt approached Lim 

 and if in a box, his head is often found during his illness turned toward the door ci 

 window. Fever, without any disturbance of the respiration, has always been present; 

 ,ie pulse has been accelerated, though rather small and weak in its beat than indioa 

 dve of strength ; the mouth has been hot, sometimes burning hot, afterwards moist, 

 and perhaps saponaceous ; the skin and extremities in general have been warm. Now 

 and then the prostration and appearance of debility have been such, and so rapid in 

 their manifestation, that, shortly after being attacked, a horse has staggeringly walked 

 iwenty yards only the distance from his stable into an infirmary-box. The appetite, 

 though impaired much, has seldom been altogether lost. Generally, if a little fresh 

 hay has been offered, it has been taken and eaten ; but to mashes there has been com- 

 monly great aversion. During the long continuance of the wind in the east, the sore 

 throat and cough have been unattended by any flux from the nose ; but since the wind 

 has shifted within this last fortnight or three weeks, discharges from the nostrils have 

 appeared, profuse even in quantity, and purulent in their nature ; in fact, the disease 

 has assumed a more catarrhal character ergo, I might add, a more favourable one. 



" The disorder has exhibited every phase and degree of intensity, from the slightest 

 perceivable dulness, which has passed off with simply a change in the diet, to' an 

 insidious, unyielding, unsubduable pleurisy, ending in hydrothorax, in spite of every- 

 thing that could be done, and most timely done. So long as the disease has confined 

 itself to the throat, and that there has been along with that only dejection, prostration, 

 and fever, there has existed no cause for alarm ; but when such symptoms have, after 

 some days' continuance, not abated, and have, on the contrary, rather increased, and 

 others have arisen which but too well have authorised suspicions that ' mischief was 

 brewing in the chest,' then there became the strongest reasons for alarm for the safety 

 of the patient. What is now to be done ? The practitioner durst not bleed a second 

 time, at least not generally, for the patient's strength would net endure it, although he 

 is certain a pleurisy is consuming his patient. He possesses no effectual means for 

 topical blood-letting. Neither blisters nor rowels, nor plugs nor setons, will take 

 any effect. Cathartic medicine he must not administer ; nauseants are uncertain and 

 doubtful in their efficacy; sedatives, tonics, and stimulants and narcotics, appear 

 counter-indicated, inflammation existing, and, when tried under such circumstances, 

 have, I believe, never failed to do harm. 



"Dissatisfied with one and all of these remedies in the late influenza though the 

 losses I have experienced have, after all, not been so very comparatively great, being 

 no more, since the beginning of the year, than three out of nearly forty cases I 

 repeat, having, as I thought, reason to be dissatisfied for losing even these three cases, 

 considering that they came under my care at the earliest period of indisposition, I 

 determined, in any similar cases that might occur, to have recourse to that medicine 

 which, in all membranous inflammations in particular, is the physician's sheet-anchor, 

 and which I had exhibited, and still continue to do, myself, in other disorders, though 

 I had never given it a fair trial in epidemics having that tendency which I have 

 described the present one uniformly to have indicated, viz., the destruction of life by 

 an inflammation attacking membranous parts, of a nature over which, being forbidden 

 to bleed, we appeared to possess little or no power. Could we have drawn blood 

 from the sides or breast, by cupping or by leeches, in any tolerable quantity, we 

 might have had some control over the internal disease; but barred from this, and 

 without any remedy save a counter-irritant, which we could not make act, or an 

 internal medicine, whose action became extremely dubious, if not positively hurtful, 

 what was to be done ? I repeat, I made up my mind to experiment with the surgeon's 

 remedy in the same disease, namely, mercury ; and that I have had reason to feel 

 gratified at the result will, I think, appear from the following cases : 



" Case I. April 8. Every symptom of the prevailing epidemic : and considerably 

 aggravated on the 10th, when the horse laboured under much prostration of strength, 

 and staggered considerably in his gait. The following ball was then ordered to be 

 given him twice a day : R Hydrarg. chlorid. 3i, farin. avenae 3ss. terebinth, vulg, 

 q. s. ut fiat bol. One to be given morning and night. He soon began to improve 4 , 

 and was returned to he stable on the 26th, convalescent. A second patient of the 

 san.e character was cured in eighteen days, and a third in nineteen days." The 

 uthor of this work had the pleasure of witnessing these cases. 



Mr. Pemivall adds. " Lest it should be said, after the perusal of :hese three case* 



