CHANGES IN THE BLOOD. 85 



excretions exhaling a peculiar odour. The animal turns slug- 

 gish and depressed, loathes its food, and seldom lies down; the 

 respiration becoming accelerated and the pulse feeble. Loss of 

 flesh, prostration of strength, short and difficult respiration, 

 frequent and indistinct pulse, and finally diarrhoea, which, if 

 once established, carries off the animal in despite of all remedies. 

 The post mortem examination reveals yellowness and flaccidity 

 of the muscular system, effusion into the areolar tissue, tliicken- 

 ing of the pericardium and pleura, with effusion into their 

 cavities, often so great as almost to cause collapse of the lungs 

 and arrest of the heart's action ; effusion into the omentum, 

 mesentery, and peritoneum. — (See Veterinarian, 1832.) 



The causes of anaemia being generally apparent, I need scarcely 

 state that they must be removed, as a primary step in its successful 

 treatment; and for this purpose, it was, or is, the custom in 

 Lincolnshire, to take up young colts for the month of August, 

 and feed them during that time exclusively on diy provender. 

 Wlien anaemia is due to the operation of a specific virus, as that 

 of glanders, or when at any time its cause cannot be discovered, 

 the employment of any mere remedial measures is of very 

 doubtful utility. Again, the anaemic condition, which can be 

 ascribed to well-known and preveutible causes, may have existed 

 so long, or operated so strongly on a constitution perhaps natu- 

 rally weak, as to act as a determining cause of some cachectic 

 condition such as tuberculosis, or to disease of the osseous system; 

 or may have so impaired the action of the heart — the fibres of 

 which have become organically altered, degenerated — as to prove 

 fatal, notwithstanding all rational treatment. The treatment cal- 

 culated to overcome anaemia consists in allowing nutritious diet, 

 carefully selected, and of easy digestion : for horses — oats, beans, 

 crushed linseed, the latter in small quantities, and good hay ; for 

 cattle and sheep — an allowance of oilcake in addition to their 

 ordinary fodder, which should be of good quality, and sufficient 

 but not over-abundant in quantity ; in addition to wliich the salts 

 of iron are to be given in small and repeated doses. If the 

 digestion be weak and the appetite bad, the iron is to be withheld, 

 the vegetable tonics and the mineral acids given. Should the 

 appetite be depraved, or if there be an unnaturally acid condition 

 of the juices of the stomach, manifested by a tendency on the part 

 of the animal to lick the walls and grind its teeth, with sourness 

 of the mouth and foetor of the faeces, the alkalies are to be com- 



