304 THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 



week will the hair and epidermis be destroyed over a large extent, 

 corresponding to the parts where the eruption has been the most 

 confluent. Such is the rapidity of the depilation that we are but 

 too apt to date the disease back to a long period, when it is, in 

 truth, but of a few days' duration. 



" It is only at this stage of the phthyriasis that horses ordinarily 

 come under observation ; and therefore does it become difficult at 

 such a time to assign to the disease any specific character ; the 

 vesicular kind of eruption serving to distinguish and classify it 

 having left no trace upon the skin, save circulatory depilation. 

 Sometimes, at this stage of the disease, sorts of solid papula?* 

 form within the substance of the skin, which become crowned with 

 secondary vesicles, whose progress is identical with that of those 

 we have already pointed out, disappearing after the formation 

 and detachment of the crust succeeding the secretion. 



" During the whole of this stage, as at the first breaking out of 

 the disease, the patients are tormented with continual burning 

 itching, causing them to rub themselves incessantly and without 

 relaxation ; so that we observe upon the skin, in those places the 

 most rubbed, lesions, which we may call traumatic,^ consequent 

 on the violent action occasioned by the bodies against which the 

 animal rubs himself. Those epidermic excoriations % appear either 

 in series of lines or in broad patches, or in places irregularly cir- 

 cumscribed, according to the regions in which they are found, 

 and the nature of the bodies against which the friction has taken 

 place. They are principally remarkable upon the lateral § parts 

 of the head and neck, upon the back and croup, upon the sides 

 and flanks, and upon the internal parts of the limbs. They look 

 either very angry or bloody, when observed immediately after 

 the rubbing, or they are covered with red incrustations more or 

 less adherent, according to the length of time they have existed ; 

 or else they appear in a state of granulation || and suppuration, 

 whenever the skin has become sufficiently deeply injured. But 

 these superficial lesions of the skin do not by right belong more 

 properly to poultry lousiness than to any other pruriginous 



* Elevations. § Side. 



f Like wounds. || Grain-like, fleshy bodies 



J Abrasions of the skin. 



