44 DISEASE. 



disease we have whose seat is said to be general, is fever : 

 this, however, is but a subterfuge — an excuse for our 

 ignorance in not knowing in what organ or set of organs 

 the action is primarily or principally going on. Such is 

 the' nature of an animal body, and the sympathy existing 

 between its different parts, that no organ can be affected to 

 any extent without occasioning a correspondent disorder in 

 the system ; converting that which was purely local, into a 

 general or constitutional affection. On the other hand, it 

 may happen that a constitutional affection will settle down 

 into a local disease ; such is very commonly the case with 

 sh^anffles. 



Acute and chronic are epithets applied to diseases in re- 

 lation to their intensity and duration : the acute being the 

 violent, painful, well-marked form ; the chronic^ the tardy, 

 lingering, protracted form — in which a disorder, less painful 

 and marked, may continue for months, and even years. 

 The diseases assuming the most acute forms in horses, are 

 colic, inflammation of the bowels, peritonitis, pleurisy, in- 

 flammation of the lungs, and mad staggers ; though some of 

 these often appear in the chronic type. The most remarkable 

 example we have of chronic disease, however, is furnished 

 by chronic glanders ; a disorder that has been known to 

 continue for years, and without, to appearance, deteriorating 

 at all the general health of the animal. 



NUMBER AND NAMES OF DISEASES. 



Of the Number of Diseases any animal is liable to, the 

 nature of disease forbids any attempt at calculation. Dis- 

 eases exhibit such shades of difference ; such connexions ; 

 such fluctuations ; that any undertaking of the sort must 

 terminate in disappointment. That the diseases of horses 

 are few in number when compared with those of the human 

 species, and that they are less complicated, is not to be 

 doubted : all this, however, is nothing more than any patho- 

 logist would anticipate, when he had contrasted the regular 

 habits of the one with the irregularities of the other. The 



