In the Stable, Field, and on the Road. 51 



they being the first who discerned and had the moral 

 courage to propagate this great truth. Influenza is an 

 Italian word, meaning influence. Its primary action is 

 direct upon the nervous system, and secondly upon the 

 vascular system. The animal appears to be suddenly 

 deprived of the requisite quantity of vigour or vital 

 stimulus necessary for the due performance of the vital 

 actions. I am of opinion that the whole system suffers 

 alike, not only the vital organs, viz., the brain, heart, 

 lungs, liver, &c, but every living tissue in the whole 

 frame is deficient in nerve force or animal electricity. 

 The first observable symptoms are cold skin, loss of 

 appetite, dulness, listlessness, pulse small and feeble, 

 varying from GO to 80 or even 100 in one minute ; 

 breathing not always disturbed, a prickling uneasiness in 

 the legs and feet, an excitable, susceptible state of the 

 bowels, voiding faeces frequently, which are soft and 

 scanty ; in some few cases we have spontaneous diarrhoea. 

 These symptoms are followed by swollen eyelids, weeping, 

 in some severe cases effusion of lymph into the chambers 

 of the eye. The mouth is not particularly hot, neither 

 are the membranes highly injected. There is more or less 

 swelling about the legs and fetlocks ; this is accompanied 

 by a morbid capillary action generally. It assumes and 

 proceeds in a uniform course, and not by natural and 

 I distinct stages. I feel no doubt many of these cases ex- 

 perience headache to a very great extent, from the 

 i manner in which they will lay their heads upon your 

 breast and seem to find relief in their heads bein^ stroked. 

 In some cases for months after the attack, symptoms ap- 

 proaching to megrims hang about them, rendering them 



