TERMINATIONS OF INFLAMMATION. 79 



burthen^ or else they incapacitate the animal and reduce it 

 to a state which renders it useless to its owner. A property 

 of the utmost consequence to the horse is good loind) no- 

 thing, however, oftener tends to impair this, and permanently 

 deteriorate it, than changes such as we have been describing 

 taking place in the respiratory apparatus ; in the air-tube, 

 giving rise to roaring ; in the lungs, to short or thick wind. 

 Lamenesses, of a permanent or incurable nature, are often 

 referable to altered structure ; without the power to re-con- 

 vert which, we are without remedy for the inconvenience 

 occasioned by it. How many a valuable horse is ruined by 

 the formation of exostosis ! in other words^ by the conver- 

 sion into bone of those parts which by nature are yielding 

 or highly elastic. 



Softening is a change which has been occasionally ob- 

 served in certain parts that have laboured under inflamma- 

 tion; but, in this case, the inflammation is rather of an 

 acute than a chronic description. Our attention was first 

 drawn to this novel alteration by the French writers. It 

 seems to have been noted in most, if not in all tissues ; the 

 nervous substance, however, in particular, is prone to it ; it 

 is not unfrequently met with in cellular and in mucous 

 membranes. The affinity to cellular tissue may serve to ex- 

 plain its occurrence in glandular structure : in the horse, 

 the liver frequently exhibits a softening in which the finger 

 may be pushed through its substance. 



Mortification expresses the death of the inflamed part. 

 Although producible by a variety of causes, yet it is but a 

 comparatively rare occurrence in horses. The inflammation 

 that gives place to it is of the acutest kind; the organs in 

 which we oftenest meet with it are the lungs ; though now 

 and then we discover such changes in the bowels. Wounds 

 also of a violent or complex nature will now and then turn 

 to mortification. In a small way, every slough we create by 

 caustic furnishes in itself an example of mortification. Any 

 part in which inflammation is running on turns from red to 

 a blackish hue, losing its heat, its sensibility, and, obtaining 

 a semi-putrid smell, has become mortified. We may know 



