ENDOCARDITIS. 203 



It appears to me that cows are more the subjects of heart 

 disease than horses. Mr. Cartwright describes a case in 

 the xiiith vol. of ^ The Veterinarian/ in which '^ the heart 

 beat most violently, and there could be heard ' a sort of 

 rustling noise about it/ '' And in cows, as well as horses, it 

 seems sometimes to be the result of metastasis, and to 

 possess the character of rheumatic inflammation. 



Several continental veterinarians have treated the subject 

 in their works, with the usual routine of symptoms, causes, 

 and treatment ; but the perusal of their accounts turns out 

 to show — what would appear to be the case in human as well 

 as horse medicine — that the " symptoms and diagnosis of 

 true carditis are so little dififerent from those of internal and 

 external carditis that nothing precise can be advanced 

 under this head.^' This is said by Dr. Copland, and I 

 believe it applies with as much force to horses as to men. 



ENDOCARDITIS. 



Inflammation of the lining membrane of the heart, 

 implied by the above heading, if we except pericarditis, 

 with which it is often combined, — owing, it is said, to the 

 almost contact and connection of the external and internal 

 membranes through the muscular interstices of the heart, — 

 appears to be the form assumed by disease in this part of 

 the horse, in preference to carditis, which latter is not only 

 rare in existence, but mysterious in its detection and deve- 

 lopment. Endocarditis would appear to be, sometimes, an 

 accompaniment, if not an origination, of disease of the valves. 



The symptoms of the presence of endocarditis, so far as 

 we have been able from our own practice, and that of 

 others, to collect them, appear to be — violent palpitation of 

 the heart, by which we mean, quick and violent beating, 

 amounting to what might be called thumping of the heart 

 against the ribs, shaking the entire framework of the body, 

 and rendering the hearths pulsation visible even at some 

 yards' distance from the animal ; while the pulse at the jaw, 

 temple, &c., indicates no such commotion. Sometimes this 



