68 DISEASES OF THE AIR-PASSAGES. 



A CURIOUS CASE came some years ago before one of 

 the Provincial Courts of France. A farmer purchased a 

 four-year-old horse at a fair. A slight discharge was 

 observed from one nostril, with some thickness of breath- 

 ing. This was not thought extraordinary as it was the 

 strangle age. The horse became worse, and at length 

 could not be used. The case was tried. A veterinary 

 surgeon deposed that there was a polypus in one of the 

 nostrils, but so high up that it would have escaped his ob- 

 servation had he not been particularly directed to it, and 

 that he believed it existed at the time of purchase. On this 

 the court determined that the horse should be returned, 

 although the term of warranty had expired, on the ground 

 that it was one of those obscure cases of unsoundness the 

 existence and nature of which could not have been discovered 

 within the prescribed time. 



HEMORRHAGE FROM THE NOSE. 



Epistaxis — as the flux of blood from the nose is 

 technically called — occurs now and then in horses; and 

 when it does happen, the blood commonly comes but 

 from one nostril : a circumstance which of itself may be 

 regarded as an important distinction between epistaxis and 

 hemoptysis or hemorrhage from the lungs. There may be 

 a stream of blood, or it may issue only drop by drop. In 

 either case, it is very apt to collect within the chamber of 

 the nose and about the nostril, where it occasions irritation, 

 and causes the horse to snort and blow out clots of blood ; 

 and thus, by opening the sources afresh, is produced, renewed 

 and augmented hemorrhage. As to the blood itself, its 

 character is mostly arterial, its colour being generally a 

 bright scarlet. 



The CAUSE of the hemorrhage is sometimes constitutional, 

 sometimes local and accidental. When the bleeding cannot 

 be ascribed to any local irritation or injury, it is said to be 

 spontaneous ; under which form it may, in general, be 

 referred to a surcharged condition of the capillaries of the 

 Schneiderian membrane, either from determination of blood 



