CAUSES or INFLAMMATION. 65 



upon young horses. Although horses may escape imme- 

 diate evil from the first change, few veterinarians will feel 

 inclined to deny the injurious effects of cold and wet, or 

 maintain the animals do not in such situations often con- 

 tract the foundation for disease, which, at some future time, 

 is apt to prove fatal. Cold, apart from wet, is not found to 

 be near so prejudicial as when combined with moisture : 

 hence we are in the habit of viewing frosty weather as a 

 season of health; hence it is the wet months of spring 

 and autumn are the most unhealthy, the weather then being 

 moist and variable. But, independent of these changes, 

 there are conditions of the atmosphere which we regard as 

 peculiar .- when prevalent, they are apt to produce a sort of 

 epidemic among horses, called influenza. 



Animal Poisons are found to be occasionally suspended 

 in the atmosphere, and through its medium these produce 

 their effects. The air of a hot and ill-ventilated stable may 

 prove an excitant of inflammation, not only from its high 

 temperature, but also from the effluvia with which it has 

 become impregnated. Animal poisons may also be conveyed 

 through the medium of the secretions. Rabies is trans- 

 mitted through the saliva, Earcy and glanders may be 

 transferred by inoculation with the discharge of the nasal 

 membrane ; and mange is conveyed by simple contact. 



Spontaneous Inflammations are such as arise without 

 any assignable cause. That there are many of this descrip- 

 tion we have daily proof; and yet it is contrary to our 

 philosophy to suppose that diseased action can be set up 

 without a cause, though it be one difficult to discover. The 

 causes we esteem among the inevitable provocatives of dis- 

 ease, are all external to the body: we do not reckon with 

 sufficient accuracy the results of internal functions, or the 

 variety of diseases which may be engendered by their faulty 

 action, or through the imperfection of the blood. By this 

 fluid all organs are nourished, and on this fluid many of 

 them work important changes. Were our knowledge only 

 perfect, and had we a thorough comprehension of the rela- 

 tion subsisting between the body and the various organs, we 



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