888 Paralytic Heinoglobinemia. 



may become affected which cross their foot over the pole or 

 the halter rope and strain their muscles (Hasse). 



The arrangement of the stable is also supposed to have 

 an unfavorable influence to a certain degree, inasmuch as horses 

 kept in poorly ventilated, warm, damp stables are affected more 

 frequently. 



The influence of the season is manifested in that the disease 

 generally occurs more frequently during cold weather. It may 

 be attributed to this condition that cold has a more or less 

 important, or even an exclusive etiological significance in the 

 development of the disease. However in this respect there 

 are numerous exceptions. Thus of the 91 cases observed dur- 

 ing 19 years at the clinic of Budapest, 42 occurred in the first 

 and fourth, 49 in the second and third quarters of the year. 

 According to the statistical data of the Prussian Army in the 

 last 10 years 160 horses became affected in the first and fourth 

 quarter, and 371 in the second and third quarter ; in the second 

 and third quarter, that is, in that half of the year in which 

 there is less opportunity for the action of cold, the number 

 of the affections were year after year considerably higher. 



Numerous hypotheses were formed for the explanation of the 

 true cause and nature of the disease, the more important of which 

 only will be mentioned. Dieckerhoff accepted as the cause an auto- 

 intoxication, claiming that the toxic substances (meat lactic acid and 

 other substances) develop from the proteids that are not utilized during 

 rest, and which are broken up under the influence of a supposed fer- 

 ment. In Egypt, recently Bollinger also considered the disease as an 

 auto-intoxication. According to this author a certain hemolytic toxin 

 is supposed to develop from the proteids under the influence of muscular 

 work or cold. Eber attributes it to the formation of a toxigenic sub- 

 stance which is supposed to change to a poison during muscular func- 

 tions. Hink accuses oxidation and decomposition products, which 

 form rapidly during exertion of the muscles previously kept out of 

 function for a long time ; he thinks that under the cooperation of 

 vasometer disturl)ances there results under a simultaneous attack of 

 cold an accumulation of lactic acid and its compounds in the muscles, 

 leading to a congealing of the muscle substance, paralysis of the muscles, 

 and to a solution of the muscle coloring matter. According to Ohler 

 the disease develops as a result of an excessive and rapid breaking 

 down of the glycogen in the muscles, in such a way that the sugar 

 formed from the glycogen produces a myositis and secondarily a 

 nephritis. According to Siedamgrotzky & Hofmeister the red blood 

 corpuscles are supposed to be dissolved by the urea and by the extrac- 

 tive substances accompanying it which are formed in large quantities 

 by the muscle. 



MacFadyean considers an excessive production of red blood cor- 

 puscles under the influence of rich feeding as the cause; the profuse, 

 newly formed red blood corpuscles are then supposed to break down 

 during subsequent work. 



The greatest acclaim was given to the theory of cold. Thus Lucet 

 attributed it to an acute nephritis brought on by cold and to subsequent 

 uremic or other intoxications. A great number of French authors 

 formerly accepted as the fundamental cause of the disease a hyperemia 



