362 ENZOOTIC AND EPIZOOTIC DISEASES. 



if? often irritable, and the passage of fteces causes some degree of 

 pain ; on the third or fourth day the fitces become pultaceous 

 and often of a brown colour, and later on diarrhoea may occur. 



In other cases, including from the third to the sixth day of 

 the disease, serious pneumonic symptoms are observed : there is 

 an extensive exudation into the lung tissue — in fact, what is 

 observable as taking place in the extremities, viz., exudation and 

 swelling, is occurring in the lungs, causing the respiratory 

 movements to become greatly accelerated, but if gangrene does 

 not set in, indicated by fcetor of the breath or discharge of 

 dark-coloured blood from the nostrils, recovery may still be 

 hoped for. 



In other instances, even during convalescence, the pulse, 

 hitherto moderately strong, and all other symptoms passing 

 away, becomes rapidly feeble, and the animal suddenly dies, and 

 on making a post mortem examination, firm clots or thrombi 

 have been found in the heart, lungs, and blood-vessels, which 

 have stopped the circulation and caused death. 



This termination has to be very carefully guarded against, as 

 it may occur in the most promising cases. It is brought about 

 as follows : — The disease is one which particularly attacks areolar 

 tissue ; and inflammation of this tissue, like that of the more 

 firmly fibrous, causes the development of coagulating properties 

 in the blood, and when — added to this coagulative tendency — 

 the heart loses its tone, the blood coagulates in its cavities and 

 blocks the circulation. In other instances horses have died 

 weeks or even months after they have passed through the 

 d' «iase, and post mortem examinations have revealed plugging 

 of the vessels of some important organ. 



Another rare complication is witnessed by symptoms of 

 irritation of the brain and its membranes, with effusion into the 

 ventricles and sub-arachnoid space. As this complication mani- 

 fests itself there will be at first delirium, the eyes staring, the 

 pupils dilated, perhaps complete blindness, with unconscious 

 restlessness, tendency to elevate the head, followed by paralysis 

 commencing in the hind limbs and extending to the whole 

 muscular system, with total blindness, unconsciousness, stertorous 

 breathing, inability to swallow, and loss of voluntary movements : 

 these conditions indicate a rapidly approaching fatal termina- 

 tion. To recapitulate, the symptoms may be briefly stated to 

 be as follows : — 



