96 STRANGLES. 



others which specially indicate the visceral implications. So 

 long as the development of these multiple abscesses seems 

 confined to the subcutaneous tissue of the limbs, the animal 

 may continue to feed moderately well, and if they are restricted 

 to these situations, it may ultimately recover. When, however, 

 pneumonic, cardiac, or enteric symptoms manifest themselves, 

 consecutive to this condition of hectic, there is small chance of 

 recovery. Food is refused, a catarrhal and irritable state of 

 the intestinal membrane may develop itself, the great serous 

 cavities of the thorax and abdomen become charged with fluid, 

 and rapid disintegration of lung-tissue ensue ; with such con- 

 ditions there is rarely sufficient stamina left to enable the 

 animal to recover. Fatal exhaustion may not be so rapid as we 

 might anticipate ; it is, however, certain. 



Why these conditions of pyasmia and of septic contamination 

 of the blood should not occur in every case, or at least in a 

 greater number of cases of strangles than they really do, or 

 why they occur in any instance, or what is the mode of their 

 production, are questions which, although they have been 

 much debated, may even yet be regarded as scarcely answered. 



That it is due to the absorption into and admixture with 

 the blood of some material or agent which thus acts in a 

 deleterious manner, and by selective affinity is specially de- 

 tained and operative at the particular centres of local inflam- 

 matory action, as also that this morbiflc factor or agent is in a 

 certain manner related to the previously existing foci of in- 

 flammation and suppuration, is in these cases now under notice 

 tolerably certain. 



The idea that the passage into the blood of pus simply as 

 pus, and which, either from the physical characters or size of 

 its formed materials, and the operation physically or mechani- 

 cally of such when located in the capillaries of an organ ; or 

 that its vital or chemical action on the blood in an ordinary 

 and healthy condition, so to speak, is the true cause, ex- 

 planation, or source of the multiple abscesses met with in cases 

 of pyajmia following strangles, is at the 2:)resent scarcely regarded 

 as the correct explanation of this condition. 



It would seem rather that the facts and evidence Avitli which 

 we are acquainted point to the occurrence of a change, or 

 further diseased condition, first occurring in connection with 



