In the Stable, Field, and on the Road. 55 



ments of the pleura. In simple influenza it is perfectly 

 immaterial whether the subject is an old horse or a 

 voung one, whether it be in a high fleshy condition or 

 in a low and lean condition. If it has died from in- 

 fluenza, there will be no trace whatever of disease in 

 any vital organ obvious to the anatomist; but there 

 will be one leading feature invariably present, viz., a 

 soft, flabby, pulpy condition of all the muscular 

 structures throughout the body and the whole of the 

 vital organs. These tissues are blanched and of a pale 

 clay colour, as if the whole system had been blighted, 

 blasted, and the fire of vitality had burned out, 

 leaving a white ash only, and that the arterial blood 

 had lost its vermilion colour. To render my views 

 more clear, I will illustrate it by two examples. I 

 have spoken of nerve forces : we all know that a 

 palsical limb is consequent upon either complete or 

 partial loss of nerve power. If a post-mortem ex- 

 amination be made of a limb recently palsical it is 

 found that the flesh is soft, flabby, pulpy, and of a 

 pale clay colour, exactly the same as we find in cases 

 that have died of influenza, Again, if we examine a 

 body that has been killed by lightning, being in perfect 

 health, there is the same soft, flabby, pulpy state of the 

 flesh, which is of a pale clay colour, exactly the same as 

 found in influenza subjects. To call the particular con- 

 dition of the muscular structures disease, is, I maintain, 

 a fallacy. I contend, and in this I am supported by many 

 eminent veterinary surgeons, that being struck down by 

 lightning, and being attacked by influenza is precisely the 

 same thing in nature ; the same vital element is ab* 



