THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 257 



human subject, rheumatism and cardiac affection are twin 

 brothers. In some subjects the diseases appear, now and then, 

 to go hand in hand ; cardiac disease is liable to end in rheuma- 

 tism, and vice versa. Gallup thus alludes to the subject : " If 

 rheumatism shows a propensity to migrate more than some other 

 affections, it claims this right by keeping within the range of its 

 kindred tissues. It goes to the tissue of a neighboring joint of 

 the same family, and its way is prepared by an altered and ex 

 cited state of all these tissues, when the morbid habit has been 

 established. If it steals its way to the heart, it there occupies 

 its family seat in the fibrous tissues. But it is not very common 

 that it makes this stride ; when it does, it is liable to be a fatal 

 one ; it commonly abides there to spend its rage and subdue its 

 victim. It acknowledges the same predisposing causes with other 

 acute diseases, which are aided by an idiosyncrasy. It is a dis- 

 ease chiefly of cold seasons, but does appear in the predisposed 

 from the influence of relative cold, from sudden changes in warm 

 seasons." 



" The concentrations of local affections in disease often pass 

 from one part to another with equal facility, before the part has 

 suffered essential lesions by their ravages ; and, indeed, in some 

 cases, when this is the fact, without carrying with them the 

 alterations they have already made. The localists and humored- 

 ists have always been confounded with their own theories, be- 

 cause they never could apprehend how their materia exciians 

 should so easily migrate the capillaries as to get so far without, 

 their being able to ken its march." 



Here we have an explanation of that peculiar state of the 

 system, termed by some writers body founder, which is nothing 

 more nor less than rheumatism in its chronic stage. In a case of 

 this kind, the whole muscular system seems affected. White 

 thus describes it : " At first the foundered horse appears as if 

 every part of the body were affected, and sometimes this is the 

 case ; at others, the fore parts or the feet appear affected ; and 

 in some cases, the loins or hind parts generally. This disorder 

 is similar to acute rheumatism, or rheumatic fever, [it is identi- 

 cal,'] and appears to depend on inflammation of the muscles, 

 sometimes affecting the muscles of respiration, and sometimes 

 22* 



