NATURE OF THE DISEASE. 87 



previously healthy, but further, that previously healthy colts, 

 placed in stables where diseased ones had recently been located, 

 have also contracted the disease. Without admitting the influ- 

 ence of contagion in these cases, it seems difficult to explain 

 why disease should break forth amongst the previously healthy 

 on the introduction to their company of an animal already ill ; 

 or why horses, previously free from strangles, should at once 

 exhibit and develop the fever on being placed in stables where 

 contaminated animals had recently been located. 



As corroborative of the statement that strangles is non- 

 contagious, it has been stated that it may not be propagated 

 by inoculation. That this statement is correct we are not 

 certain ; rather would it appear that experimentation is needed 

 to settle the point. 



No doubt many cases of the disease are easily or only 

 satisfactorily accounted for apart from the idea of contagion 

 altogether. 



The opinion of the older observers, that there existed, ready 

 formed in the blood of the young animal, some special material 

 or arrangement of constituent materials which, when acted 

 upon by agencies from without, resulted in the development of 

 the fever and production of the abscess, and that this matura- 

 tion and discharge of purulent matter was the means through 

 which the animal body discharged itself of this deleterious 

 agent, or rectified the abnormal arrangement of the constituent 

 elements, and was thus the indication and assurance that a 

 more healthful and vigorous gTowth and develoj^ment of organs 

 and functions was certain to follow, is not very widely separated 

 from what may be regarded as the presently entertained idea 

 of the nature of this disease, and its mode of development, 

 when the origin by contagion is denied. 



The source of this poison may, it is held by those who advo- 

 cate the non-communicable nature of the disease, be traced to 

 the effete or worn-out materials of the body, which have through 

 some fault failed to be thrown off, and which may further 

 have undergone decomposition or chemical changes, these, it is 

 thought,being sufficient of themselves to induce ulterior changes 

 in healthy tissue, or such changes may only be assisted by this 

 retention, and may be chiefly dependent for their production on 

 the reception into the system of the results of the putrefaction 



