INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 9 



The PRoroRTioN of deaths from pulmonary disease may 

 also be estimated from these computations : it appearing in 

 the ratio of 11 to 300, or a fraction more than one in four.^ 



Treatment of internal disease. — The foregoing prac- 

 tical deductions have been submitted with a view of throwing 

 some light on the causes of disease in general_, especially of 

 those diseases to which the horse appears most obnoxious: 

 the brief remarks that follow are intended to elucidate their 

 treatment. Reasoning on general physiological principles, 

 one would suppose that, in an animal in whom the pulse 

 in health ranges under 40, the respiration proportionately 

 slow, and in whom the functions of the alimentary canal 

 are so tardily carried on that we cannot insure the operation 

 of a common purge under twenty-four hours, the progress of 

 disease would likewise be slow; so far, however, is this from 

 being the case, that there is no animal, probably, in which 

 acute disease in general makes such fatal havoc in so short a 

 time as in the horse. An attack of pneumonia has been 

 known to kill in less than twenty-four hours : an enteritic 

 paroxysm in half that time. Changes of structure are in like 

 manner rapid in taking place. There is also a prevailing 

 disposition in the constitution of the horse to convert that 

 which was originally soft and cellular in its composition 

 into solid substance; and that which was uniformly solid, 

 but still pliable and elastic in its nature, into osseous sub- 

 stance, no longer flexible nor even impressible. These few 

 preliminary observations will show the absolute necessity 

 there is, in treating the acute diseases of horses, to at once 

 have recourse to — 



Remedies prompt to act and efficacious when they 

 uo ACT. — This property it is which has placed bloodletting 

 at the top of our therapeutic catalogue, and at the same time 

 rendered it a measure to which, when requisite, it becomes 

 our duty to have early or at least timely recourse, before 

 symptoms supervene which may forbid it. A surgeon can 



' The proportion of deaths to recoveries is probably too highly rated here, 

 it being well known that cases of sliylit or incipient pulmonary disorder are very 

 apt to become registered under the head of " Fever." 



