84 STRANGLES. 



regard it as truly an eruptive febrile disease of the liorse. 

 Like the entire class of the eruptive fevers, the so-called 

 greater exanthemata, whether in man or animals, it has certain 

 class features which serve to form a bond of union amongst 

 these, giving them a community of character and interest. 

 1. All these fevers are characterized by more or less well-deve- 

 loped pyrexial symptoms which run a definite course. 2. They 

 are all identified by an eruption, which passes through a regular 

 series of changes from its appearance to its maturation and 

 decline. 3. They sometimes appear as epidemics or epizootics. 



4. They attack all, or the greater number of individuals. 



5. They are only disposed to attack an individual once in a 

 lifetime. 6. They are disposed to run a definite course, and 

 are dangerous mainly when checked in their course ; they are 

 best treated by simply guiding this course. 7. They may be 

 all propagated by contagion. 



Now if we carefully consider the nature or character of 

 strangles, by examining it a little in detail upon these several 

 leading features which have been mentioned as characteristic 

 of the specific eruptive fevers, we may be able to see m how 

 much it agrees with these, and where also it may be regarded 

 as differing. 



1. All these fevers are marked hy more or less luell-developed 

 pyrexial syinj^toms, ivhich run a definite course. — None, I 

 suppose, will deny that fever, distinct and definite in character, 

 is a distinguishing feature of strangles. Although probably 

 not the essential or diagnostic feature of the disease, it is never- 

 theless nearly invariably present. In its character it is steady 

 and continued, sometimes remittent, in rare cases intermittent ; 

 and when of the intermittent type, it is always indicative of 

 the same grave lesions. The relation of the fever to the 

 eruption is always the same. When the abscess moves steadily 

 through its dift'erent stages, from the infiltration of the con- 

 nective tissue, softening of exudate, appearance of pus, thinning 

 of the cutaneous tissues and discharge of the contained fluid, 

 the fever preserves a similar steady and gradual advance, then 

 a quiet but regular defervescence. When, however, the matu- 

 ration of the phlegmon is in any way arrested, or, the abscess 

 having been discharged, a change in constitutional symptoms 

 shows itself, the general lymphatic gland system seems speci- 



