114 DISEASES OP THE HORSE. 



an extent tliat it looks as if the horse were salivated. 

 The legs soon swell, or become rounded, or filled as 

 they are often called. The swellings are not inflamma- 

 tory, nor painful; they contain lymph, or plastic mat- 

 ter from the blood, w^hich disappears as it came, when 

 the strength of the horse gets up as^ain, and the disease 

 rubsides. The appetite is entirely suspended from the "com- 

 mencement of the disease. There is one of the many 

 symptoms, which is never absent in this disease, and is 

 very characteristic of its name and seat, and this symptom 

 is that the foeces or dung is small, or in pellets, and covered 

 with slime, and portions of the mucous membrane of the 

 stomach and bowels, or what the stable-man calls "very 

 feverish.^^ The prominent symptom of this disease is great 

 weakness, and this is the case, almost from the first mo- 

 ment of the attack. 



Causes, The cause of this as well as of all epizootic 

 diseases, is involved in not a little obscurity, and to get out 

 of this state of ignorance, and uncertainty as to the cause, 

 w^e are graciously pleased to call it atmospheric. This 

 atmospheric influence, may be either electric, a poison, or 

 a chemical element, capable of altering or changing the 

 various parts or portions of the body most exposed to its 

 subtle influences. However, this disease, as before stated^ 

 is peculiar to the spring of the year, commencing as 

 the hermetically sealed earth begins to open its pores to 

 the rain and sunshine of spring. May there not be dele- 

 terious emanations from the earth, or at least after great 

 frost or snow, is there not during the process of thaAving a 

 colder air or gas given forth from the thawing process, than 

 the animal is breathing a few feet higher up from the 

 ground? This was one of the points entering into the 

 celebrated controversy between myself and the distiii* 



