STRANGLES. 149 



and oue apt to carry a false notion of the disorder it de- 

 signates. It appears to have had its origin when little more 

 was thought about the disease than its evident tendency to 

 strangle the patient. 



" The old English term for this disease/^ says John Law- 

 rencCj " was the strangullion ;" which is evidently a corrupt 

 rendering or transmutation of the French word etranguillon 

 — from the verb etr angler ^ to strangle. 



My reason for classing strangles among fevers, is, that I 

 regard the fever with which it is acknowledged to be accom- 

 panied, not as a sympathetic, but as the primary one. 



Mr. Castley has left us an excellent paper on this subject, 

 in which he remarks, that "often w^en a young horse is 

 looking sickly, delicate, or thriftless, farmers or breeders will 

 say, ' he is breeding the strangles,^ or that *" strangles is 

 hanging about him, and he will not get better until he gets 

 over that complaint.^ '' From which it appears that the 

 animal is suffering from what I call sir angle -fever — from a 

 fever, the tendency of which is to produce local abscess ; 

 and commonly underneath the jaws — whence it has obtained 

 the appellation of strangles. 



Mr. Prosser (who wrote a small work on strangles and 

 fever in 1786) contends that strangles could be, with cer- 

 tainty and advantage, communicated to colts by inoculation. 

 (Spooner's ^ White's Farriery.-') 



The reader who desires to enter fully into a discussion 

 concerning the contagiousness of strangles, may with advan- 

 tage turn to the ^Veterinarian' for 1851. 



Nature of Strangles. — Mr. Castley's paper induced me 

 to take different views from any I had entertained before. 

 It was from comparing that account with a retrospect of 

 the observations which had occurred to myself,' I con- 

 cluded that not only the local affection was secondary, and 



' In looking over ray notes, I find the following memorandum, penned some 

 time prior to the publication of Mr. Castley's paper :— " Cases not unfrequently 

 present themselves, in which the cellular tissue covering the parotid gland, be- 

 comes the seat of abscess. Is this to be considered as the disease itself, or 

 merely as a precursor or the sequel ?" 



