MALADIE DU COIT. 263 



The supposition that the maladie clu colt has been trans- 

 mitted from man to the equine race, has not been rejected on 

 account of the revulsion of feeling to which the thought of such 

 a den-radation oives rise, for the record of the debaucheries of 

 Eome sufficiently show that sexual intercourse between man and 

 the inferior animals has taken place. Even in this enlightened 

 age the Arabs believe that by fornicating with the ass they can 

 rid themselves of venereal diseases, and on this account some of 

 the adherents of its syphilitic nature have founded the origin 

 of this disease. 



Its syphilitic nature, however, is rejected on better grounds. 



The symptoms are not those of sypliilis; the indurated 

 chancres, or the ulcerations which invade the throat, lips, &c., 

 that characterise this disease in man, are not met with in the 

 maladie du co'it. 



The inoculation of the syphilitic virus to the lower animals, 

 as shown by numerous experimentalists, and more especially by 

 the carefully conducted experiments of M. le Docteur M. A. 

 Horand (Chirurgien en chef de I'Antiquaille k Lyons), and M. 

 F. Peuch (Chef de service de clinique k I'^cole veterinaire de 

 Lyons), practised in 1868 and 1869, and published in 1870, is 

 followed by entirely negative results. The mercurial treatment, 

 so efficacious in syphilis, is not only entirely fruitless, but has 

 been thought to hurry the death of the equine sufferer. 



It would be useless to detail the hypotheses of the various 

 authors, as they are all equally unsatisfactory. 



The history of the disease, if minutely related, would occupy 

 several pages. I will, however, limit myself to say that it was 

 not known until the end of the last century, when it was first 

 seen in Eussia (in 1796), and that it has since invaded Africa, 

 America, Egypt, and the majority of the European countries. 

 No mention, however, has been made of it in Great Britain 

 Spain, or Belgium. 



CONTAGION. 



The contagious properties of the disease have been denied by 

 some, but the experiments of M. Lafosse are sufficient to con- 

 vince the most incredulous. In 1852 that gentleman took fifteen 

 healthy mares from a regiment stationed at Toulouse (where the 

 disease had never been seen, and where it has never since 



