INFLUENZA. 143 



practitioners are either altogether abstained from, or very 

 cautiously enforced. 



Our professional knowledge is not at present sufficiently 

 advanced to assign to influenza the place which it should 

 hold among other diseases. Its symptoms appear to indi- 

 cate it is a typhoid affection of the great mucus-track. 

 From the eye and nose copious discharges often drain. 

 The trachea and the lungs, we are aware, are frequently 

 the centre of the ravage. The appetite bespeaks a deranged 

 stomach, and gripes or purging prove the bowels are subject 

 to be involved. But this is not all ; influenza does not 

 terminate here. Local swelling, occasionally of magnitude, 

 show other parts are implicated. The weakness demon- 

 strates the muscular system is disordered. The pulse proves 

 the vascular system is not in health ; and the lethargy and 

 confusion which the animal exhibits, indicate the brain is 

 oppressed. 



Taking these facts into proper consideration, it does appear 

 that influenza, more than any other disease of no higher 

 intensity, envelops the whole body as with a mantle. No 

 part can be said to be exempt from the disorder, though 

 any part may on any particular occasion escape its virulence. 

 All is, therefore, conjecture as to the precise character or 

 actual location of the disease. It has puzzled, and still 

 puzzles the ablest investigators ; and, until we know better, 

 perhaps, it were as well to name it mild universal typhus 

 fever. 



The Season of the Year is believed to have much to do 

 with the production of influenza — indeed, it is thought to be 

 caused by a something floating in the air. The Italians 

 christened it influenza, because they imagined it originated 

 in the influence of the stars ! Among the horses, it occurs 

 at the spring and fall of the year; more frequently in the 

 former than in the latter season. The prevalence of an 

 easterly wind, or of a wind that frequently changes, joined 

 with a hot sun, has often seemed to me the forerunner 

 or the exciter of influenza. At some periods the disorder 

 will run through entire stables ; at others it will attack them 



