DIARRHCEA. 365 



and thereby to augment their serous or watery secretions, 

 may be considered as a cause of diarrhoea of a serous 

 character. 



Inflammation, however, may rapidly seize the membrane, 

 and increase to that degree that its serous secretion, in- 

 stead of being augmented, may become diminished or even 

 altogether arrested; and there be effused in its stead 

 flakes or strings of coagulable lymph, which, along with 

 the mucus issuing from the follicles of the membraue, 

 clings to and envelopes the dung-balls; and, in consequence, 

 they come away enveloped in those glairy gelatinous coat- 

 ings farriers and grooms so familiarly recognise under the 

 appellation of molten grease. Over-working, or " over- 

 marking," as it is called, is a common cause of this inflam- 

 matory condition of membrane, one which often creates a 

 great deal of constitutional irritation, so much on some 

 occasions as to end in death : though a frequent and natural 

 result of it is diarrhoea, which appears to be the most favor- 

 able turn the disease can take. It not unfrequently happens 

 that the mucous follicles participate in the inflammation — 

 though they may be excited to increased secretion only ; in 

 which case ulceration of those parts is very likely to follow, 

 and thus becomes laid the foundation for a painful and 

 troublesome form of diarrhoea, or rather, I would say, for a 

 dysentery. At other times the inflammation pursues a more 

 directly destructive course, and speedily ends in mortifica- 

 tion of the membrane and death of the patient. 



Disordered States of the Liver, Mesenteric Glands, 

 &c., may give rise to diarrhoea, either from the irritation 

 caused by unhealthy secretions, or from functional connec- 

 tion, by sympathy. Green-meat, especially the spring and 

 late autumnal productions, appear to have considerable 

 eff'ect in augmenting the secretion of bile, and thus to give 

 rise to a sort of bilious diarrhoea : new hay likewise has the 

 same tendency. Of the pancreatic juice, and its uses, we 

 know so little, that we are without the power of patholo- 

 gysing on this part of our subject. But in respect to the 

 mesenteric glands, as we shall learn hereafter, diarrhoea is 



