RHEUMATISM. 441 



and everted; the pericardium red, injected, and covered with 

 lymph. 



Dr. Fuller believes the poison of rheumatism to be identical 

 with some natural excretion of the skin. The researches of Dr. 

 Parkes lead him to conclude that the disease is due to some 

 substance rich in sulphur ; whilst other writers and observers 

 look upon rheumatism as simply an inflammation of the fibrous 

 and serous membranes, the predisposition to which arises from 

 deficiency of healthy tone in these textures, rendering them 

 liable to be inflamed by the influence of a variable temperature. 

 The character of rheumatism, more especially its metastatic 

 tendency, and the symmetrical development of its symptoms, 

 tend to show that an alteration in the blood exists ; the only 

 constant alteration is, however, the great increase of fibrin. We 

 are thus led to the conclusion that, whatever the morbid ma- 

 terial may be, it is one formed within the economy, and due 

 either to a faulty secondary digestion and assimilation, or to an 

 abnormal metamorphosis of tissue and the retention of the pro- 

 ducts of such metamorphosis within the animal body. In man 

 copious perspiration is a characteristic sign of rheumatism, and it 

 is to be noticed that this perspiration has an acid or sour smell. 

 In the lower animals perspiration may be copious, but sourness 

 of smell is not appreciable. 



In rheumatic endocarditis in man, the left side of the heart 

 is only aftected, as a general rule ; and it has been inferred by 

 Dr. Eichardson that the chemical change whereby the morbid 

 matter of acute rheumatism is produced, is completed in the 

 pulmonary circulation ; that when the blood in the pulmonary 

 capillaries is exposed to the air, the acid quality of the poison 

 is produced ; that the poison thus formed is carried by the 

 arterial circulation to be disposed of by decomposition or elimi- 

 nation, or both ; and that it does not return as an acid by the 

 veins, but simply as a product which admits of retransformation 

 in the pulmonic circuit into the acid state. 



TREATMENT. 



In the, Horse. — A gentle laxative may be given with advan- 

 tage, and there is no such objection to an aloetic purge as in 

 some of the diseases which have been enumerated. If the pain 

 be excessive, opium may be combined with the purgative, and 



