68 PATHOLOGY. 



dency to produce fat rather than muscle prevails to a very great 

 extent in this country, encouraged and fostered by our agricul- 

 tural societies, and by purchasers who buy to " please the eye." 

 The question presents itself — Who is responsible when a horse 

 dies in a few days after purchase, either directly or indirectly 

 from this cause ? The buyer or the seller ? 



Fatty infiltration must be carefully separated from fatty 

 degeneration. Degeneration of normal tissues is at all times a 

 morbid process indicative of chronic disease. Infiltration, on 

 the other hand, is a physiological process depending on well- 

 known causes, and furnishes no evidence of a chronically 

 diseased condition of the organ affected. As an example of the 

 importance of the separation of the two conditions, we will 

 suppose a case analogous to what often happens, of a horse in 

 jDOor condition — thin — being purchased from the breeder and 

 rapidly fed for sale. Such an one puts on fat quickly, and 

 thrives as well as its purchaser can desire. We will say that 

 it is sold and put to work, and that it dies in the course of a 

 week or two after the second sale. Altogether it has not been 

 out of the hands of the breeder more than two months. Now, 

 the last purchaser naturally looks for restitution to the person 

 from whom he bought it, who, in his turn, may make a claim 

 on the breeder. In many cases the matter is amicably settled 

 by the three interested parties dividing the loss amongst them. 

 Is this just ? Decidedly not ; and in all such instances the man 

 who sold the horse before the fattening process had been com- 

 menced should not be made to suffer, the enlargement of the 

 liver being merely due to an accumulation of fat, and not to 

 any disease : and if one individual is to suffer, let the man who 

 resorted to the forcing system of producing fat be made respon- 

 sible ; or let the loss be divided between him and the man who 

 bought what pleased his eye, and who must have known, or 

 ought to have known, that an animal loaded with fat was unfit 

 for useful purposes. But should an examination reveal that the 

 condition of the liver was due to degeneration, the case is entirely 

 different, for beyond a doubt the disease must have been present 

 prior to the first purchase, and the breeder ought then to be 

 responsible for the whole loss. 



Degeneration generally occurs in the aged, and may be asso- 

 ciated with general emaciation, and with degeneration of otlier 



