THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 67 



tremities. These symptoms are accompanied by a quick pulse ; 

 respiration short, quick, and laborious. The movement at the 

 flanks, termed abdominal respiration, is marked, generally, by a 

 degree of regularity indicative of the oppressive state of the 

 organs of respiration. As the disease progresses, the ears, nose, 

 and legs have an icy coldness ; the animal assumes a position 

 that "will expand the thorax; the head and neck are extended ; 

 nostrils dilated ; the fore legs are stiffened and stretched out, 

 and the disease frequently terminates in engorgement of the 

 lungs, and, more frequently in tliis country than in any other, 

 effusion into the thorax. 



Mr. Percivall (Lect. xxxviii. p. 323) makes some very inter- 

 esting remarks in connection with pneumonia, which, although 

 intended for the meridian of London, are applicable to this 

 country. He says, " Pulmonary disease runs its course now and 

 then with surprising rapidity. I have known a horse to be at- 

 tacked with acute pneumonia, and to die from it in the space of 

 seventeen hours ; and it is by no means uncommon for it to prove 

 fatal on the second or third day from its onset. Ignorance of 

 this fact has led to the institution of many lawsuits, and to some 

 oppressive judicial arbitrations for horse dealers ; e. g., a gentle- 

 man purchases a young horse, warranted sound, and the next 

 day, or the day after, rides or drives the animal, unprepared for 

 fatigue, and consequently unable to bear it, by way of trial ; the 

 day following this trial, or rather ordeal, the horse refuses his 

 food, blows a little, and soon after manifests a severe attack of 

 pneumonia, of which, within a few days or weeks from his pur- 

 chase, he dies. An action is immediately brought against the 

 dealer. Some blundering, ignorant farrier, on the part of the 

 plaintiff, swears that the animal, when opened, was found ' as 

 rotten as a pear,' and that he must consequently have been dis- 

 eased long before he icas bought. The result is, that the dealer is 

 cast, and the gentleman recovers his money. Now, in the gen- 

 erality of these cases, the very reverse of this is the absolute 

 truth ; the animal was perfectly sound at the time of purchase, 

 and was made otherwise solely by the exertion his purchaser put 

 him to ; and so far from the rottenness of the lungs, or agglutina- 

 tion of them to the sides of the chest, being proofs of the contra- 



