DYSENTERY. G83 



part, if not altogether, by belladonna and camphor. Follow- 

 ing the subsidence also of the more acute symptoms, these cases 

 seem to improve under the use of mild vegetable tonics, as 

 quinine, gentian, myrrh, etc. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



DYSENTERY — BLOODY FLUX. 



Definition. — An intestinal inflammatory action of a 'peculiar 

 or specific character , attended ivith fever, occasional abdominal 

 pain, and fluid cdvine discharges, mingled with blood or alhii- 

 TTiinoas materials ; the tissue-changes, tvhich are usually re- 

 garded as diagnostic, being situated chiefly in the minute 

 gland-structures and interconnective tissue of the large 

 intestine. 



Pathology, a. Nature. — This affection, of less frequent 

 occurrence in the horse than in most other animals, is in 

 several of its features closely linked to diarrhoea, from which, 

 however, it is differentiated by the phenomena of constitutional 

 disturbance, and the existence of local inflammatory action 

 with specific tissue-changes. Whatever may be the immediate 

 or more remote cause in its production, its diagnostic and 

 essential features would appear to reside in elemental tissue- 

 changes of a destructive character, tending to localized gan- 

 grene, and ulceration of the mucous membrane and contiguous- 

 tissues, chiefly of the large bowels. Whether, under particular 

 conditions and influences intrinsic and extrinsic, it is in certain 

 animals capable of extension from the diseased to the healthy, 

 its power of communicability in this way in the horse has not 

 yet been estabHshed. When appearing in him it is usually in 

 association with agencies which, as a class, are fertile in the 

 production of disturbed assimilation generally. In many it 

 may be engrafted on an existing attack of diarrhoea ; or. 

 judging from my OAvn experience, it more frequently occurs as 

 a separate and independent affection. 



It is probable that animals of all ages, and under very var}'- 

 ing conditions, may exhibit this disease; but it has chiefly 



