78 



RINDERPEST. 



It is in view of the preservation of this balance of nervous 

 power in struggling nature, or, if more precisely pbrased, 

 of the salient energies of the filamentous nervous expanse 

 reticulating about every gland and perspiratory orifice of the 

 skin ; that we may find a clue to the mystery in which we 

 were content for the time being to remain, when we did not 

 essay in a previous connection (see p. 66) to explain the cereb- 

 ral disturbances, produced by the burrowing of the inoculative 

 virus throughout the epidermic cells and their mucous sub- 

 strata. Nor can we find time to dwell upon this problem in 

 physiology, or deduce any corollary, except as presage of the 

 practical use to which we may apply it in the treatment 

 recommended. 



The nature of these eruptions on the skin we have seen not 

 to be vesicular. Wherever they have appeared to be partly 

 umbilical, the Pest is complicated with ordinary cow pox ; 

 Gamgee giving the assurance that he had never seen an 

 eruption of this description where the previous existence of 

 the vaccine pustule could be doubted. Moreover, this erup- 

 tion is not to be mistaken for the maculse or petechias which 

 are met with in typhus of the human subject ; the former of 

 which are slightly elevated spots of a dusky pinkish red color, 

 somewhat like the stains of mulberry juice, fading under 

 pressure, but changing sometimes to the nature of the latter, 

 which are of a dusky crimson or purple color, numerous and 

 closely compacted, unaffected by pressure. Neither these 

 eruptions, the appearance of the tongue, the pyrexic period, 

 the general absence of capillary congestion in the bowels, the 

 red serosity found in almost every serous cavity, the deep 

 dusky red hue of every structure in contact with the blood, 

 in which the salts are increased instead of being diminished ; 

 the absence of bile acids and the presence of tyrosine and 

 leucine (p. 38); nor the absence of exhausting diarrhoea ; the 

 deep inspiration followed by short respirations in rapid suc- 

 cession ; the wasting of the involuntary muscles ; the soft- 

 ening of the heart and the atrophy of the brain which 

 occur in typhus, furnish any common basis from which we 

 may view the Pest as its counterpart ; nor for the justifica- 



