THE MODERN HOUSE DOCTOR. 221 



diture of vital power, which, taken in conjunction with the other 

 causes hinted at above, renders the horse more susceptible or 

 predisposed to diseases of a low grade, such as I am now consid- 

 ering, that energy and nervous and vital influence, which should 

 support the whole frame, are in the moulting season to a great 

 degree determined to the skin, and the horse is languid, and un- 

 able to bear as much hard work as at other seasons of the year ; 

 and if he is pressed beyond his strength, he will be liable to be- 

 come seriously ill, and that illness will be, in a great majority of 

 cases, of a low, malignant, or typhoid type, in which the system 

 is never able to react, so as to produce a disease of an infiani-' 

 matory order. Hence the frequency, at this season of the year, 

 of the disease in question, which consists essentially in a great 

 pi'ostration of the living 2^'1'inciple. In some attacks of this dis- 

 ease, it is so severe that it destroys life in the space of from six 

 to twelve hours, and on examination of the cadaver after death, 

 there will scarce be the slightest trace of the disease left behind ; 

 because the force of the cause of the disease was so powerful 

 that it took life at once, as if it had been taken by a blow on the 

 head, or as if a large dose of arsenic had been given, which 

 immediately destroys the power of the system to produce heat 

 and nervous energy, and death takes place without any reaction, 

 or without leaving any perceptible effects of the poison behind. 

 Precisely so is it with this disease when it takes life without re- 

 action. But if the attack is. not severe enough to destroy life 

 under three or four days, there will be some reaction, and traces 

 of gangrenous imfiammation may be discovered, on dissection, 

 to have taken place on the mucous membrane of the windpipe, 

 lungs, &c. And again, in a still milder attack, where the horse 

 will linger along from a week to two or three weeks, his whole 

 body becomes one mass of putrefaction, and wholly unfit to be 

 even cast to the dogs. Such, then, is the malignant nature of 

 the disease produced by poisonous agents in the air, acting on 

 horses predisposed to receive it. It not unfrequently, when it 

 prevails as an epidemic, destroys two thirds of those attacked. 

 Bidding defiance to every remedial means, it boldly marches on 

 its course, until its work of destruction is complete, and then it 

 seems as if occupying the desolated spot in triumph. 

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