HERPES. 757 



benign, acute dermatosis, attended with the formation of 

 miliary papules arranged in groups, passing into vesicles, 

 more rarely pustules, and extending over a restricted, usually 

 circular portion of inflamed skin. 



There is often much difference of opinion respecting the 

 appearance and naming of discrete spots, showing vesicles 

 which fade in a longer or shorter period, and scale off. 

 No doubt the simple inflammatory form, the true herpetic 

 eruption, has been confounded with that which is of parasitic 

 origin, disposed to spread over the body, and capable of pass- 

 ing by transplantation of spores from the diseased to the 

 healthy. In the horse, what I would claim as true herpetic 

 inflammation commonly appears in two forms — (1) As an 

 eruption of vesicles, somewhat larger than those of eczema, 

 found in irregular patches at the junction of mucous mem- 

 brane with ordinary skin, and seemingly symptomatic of irre- 

 gular digestion or disturbance of some of the complex 

 phenomena of assimilation, it is not unfrequently seen in foals 

 over the face and around the mouth while receiving milk 

 from theu^ dams, and when these latter are not constantly 

 with their young, being kept at work during the day and 

 occasionally heated ; (2) As irregularly distributed patches of 

 a cutaneous eruption, paj)ular, vesicular, or pustular, the true 

 inflammatory herpes of adult animals. 



In this form the distinct isolated patches of eruption do not, 

 as in man, appear so regularly situated along the course of 

 cutaneous nerves, nor are they found particularly located on 

 one side of the body, but rather scattered irregularly over it, 

 sometimes symmetrically and in spots or patches of a more or 

 less perfectly circular form, inclined for some days to spread 

 at their circumference, and probably not capable of propagation 

 from the diseased to the healthy. 



I have upon several occasions observed this irregularly dis- 

 tributed and patchy or herpetic inflammation of the skin in 

 horses appearing as a distinct exanthematous fever. In these 

 instances the skin eruption was associated with a little catarrh, 

 and it might have been looked upon as merely symptomatic ; 

 still, they were so distinct, so numerous, and so circumscribed 

 by local conditions that they seemed rather independent of it, 

 and only connected as adventitious occurrences. 



