256 CLINICAL VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



The most frequent after-complications are bedsores, areas of dry 

 gangrene over the most prominent portions of the body, consequent on 

 the animal remaining too long in one position, and localised atrophy 

 of certain groups of muscles, particularly of the crural muscles, conse- 

 quent on myositis or neuritis. Sometimes the hind limbs show a kind 

 of paresis due to myelitis or to spinal meningitis. 



When the end is likely to prove fatal, the grave earlier phenomena 

 persist with but slight and short remissions, or the improvement is 

 soon followed by a return of the symptoms, which are prolonged until 

 death occurs. The latter is produced either by slow asphyxia, conse- 

 quent on pulmonary congestion, or by uraemia or cardiac syncope. In 

 some cases the course is very rapid, the symptoms extremely 

 alarming from the first ; the animal struggles violently, the chief 

 functions are greatly accelerated, the respiration especially being 

 hurried and accompanied by frequent groaning; the mucous mem- 

 branes become purple and the limbs cold. Before the end of the first 

 day — sometimes after a few hours — death occurs during a violent 

 attack of struggling, or preceded only by a few convulsions. Some 

 years ago we saw these symptoms of acute hsemoglobinuria in a patient 

 which died in ten hours. 



The benign form, with or without myositis, is characterised only by 

 trifling, general disturbance and more or less marked difficulty in move- 

 ment ; the gait is stiff, awkward, and painful ; the limbs are momentarily 

 flexed ; one or another sometimes shows temporary lameness. These 

 symptoms very rapidly diminish and disappear. Resolution is gener- 

 ally announced by the passage of dark urine. Sometimes the urine is 

 scarcely red in colour, or may even appear normal. 



After recovery a predisposition to fresh attacks remains. In this 

 respect haemoglobinuria resembles rheumatic affections. One animal 

 may undergo several attacks during a few weeks. M. Lucet mentions 

 a horse which had three, separated by intervals of ten and five days. 

 This recurring character has procured for the disease the name of 

 periodic or intermittent hsemoglobinuria. 



