SYMPTOMS, COURSE, AND COMPLICATIONS. 63 



It may be tliat very early in the appearance of the catarrhal 

 symptoms we recognise the peculiar stiffness, with some crack- 

 ling of the joints, which betokens the existence of the rheumatic 

 tendency. 



The serous and fibro-serous textures entering into the 

 formation of the articulations, and connected with the 

 tendons, ligaments, and investing membranes and coverings 

 of these and some particular muscles, seem to be specially 

 selected for developing the action of the poison. 



The pain in the limbs, and in part the difficulty of ex- 

 ecuting movement, indicated by the muscular twitchings in 

 these and the repeated lifting of them from the ground, is to 

 be accounted for from the specific inflammation affecting these 

 structures, an-d from the infiltration of fluid into the subjacent 

 textures, the result of this morbid action. 



Although as a rule the inflammation of these fibrous and 

 fibro-serous connecting and investing structures of joints and 

 capsules is distributed over the greater part of the body, and 

 generally in the limbs, we also find it localized in certain 

 muscles, or sets of muscles, or rather their coverings, indicated 

 by local pain and special lameness. Not unfrequently the 

 involvement of the intimate structures of the tendons of 

 muscles and their investing fibrous sheath is very sudden — so 

 sudden that the animal, considered to be progressing satis- 

 factorily enough to-day, may to-morrow be found a cripple, 

 the supposition being common that some injury has been 

 sustained during the night. The structures most commonly 

 affected m this manner are the great tendons of the flexor 

 muscles of the foot, the 'perforans and perforatiis, and the 

 situation is generally between the knee and fetlock. When 

 aftected in this manner, the structures feel hot, swollen, tense, 

 and exceedingly tender on manipulation ; the lameness is also 

 great. This condition of these great tendinous structures is apt 

 to show a decidedly metastatic, or shifting character, attacldng, 

 it may be, all the limbs in the course of a few days ; and it is 

 also apt to persist after all other symptoms of the disease have 

 disappeared, their continuance alone preventing the animal 

 from making a perfect recovery. 



This form of the disease is said to be of more frequent 

 occurrence in colder latitudes, as North Germany, Denmark, 



