496 BUKEAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



deposits quantities of salts. At a later period the diminished excretion 

 may be replaced by an excessive excretion, which aids in carrying off 

 waste products and usuall}^ indicates an amelioration of the fever. 



While the ears, cannons, and hoofs of a horse suffering from fever 

 are usuallj^ found hot, they may f requentl}^ alternate from hot to cold, 

 or be much cooler than they normall}^ are. This latter condition 

 usuallj' indicates great weakness on the part of the circulator}- system. 



It is of the greatest importance, as an aid in diagnosing the gravity 

 of an attack of fever and as an indication in the selection of its mode 

 of treatment, to recognize the exact cause of a febrile condition in the 

 horse. In certain cases, in ver}^ nervous animals, in which fever is 

 the result of nerve influence, a simple anodyne, or even onh' quiet 

 with continued care and nursing, will sometimes be yufficient to dimin- 

 ish it. When fever is the result of local injury, the cure of the cause 

 produces a cessation in the constitutional symptoms. When fever is 

 the result of a pneumonia or other severe parenchymatous inflamma- 

 tion, it usuallj- lasts for a definite time, and subsides with the first 

 improvement of the local trouble, but in these cases we constanth^ have 

 exacerbations of fever due to secondar}^ inflammatory processes, such 

 as the formation of small abscesses, the development of secondary 

 bronchitis, or the death of a limited amount of tissue (gangrene). 



In specific cases, such as influenza, strangles, and septicemia, there 

 is a definite poison contained in the blood-vessel system, and carried 

 to the heart and to the nervous system, which produces a peculiar 

 irritation, usuall}^ lasting for a specific period, during which the tem- 

 perature can be but slightly diminished by any remed}". 



In cases attended with complications, the diagnosis becomes at times 

 still more difficult, as at the end of a case of influenza which becomes 

 complicated with pneumonia. The high temperature of the simple 

 inflammatory disease may be grafted on that of the specific trouble, 

 and the determination of the cause of the fever, as between the two, 

 is therefore frequentl3^a difficut matter but an important one, as upon 

 it depends the mode of treatment. 



Any animal suffering from fever, whatever the cause, is much more 

 susceptible to attacks of local inflammation, which become complications 

 of the original disease, than are animals in sound health. In fever we 

 have the tissues and the walls of the blood vessels weakened, we have 

 an increased current of more or less altered blood, flowing through, the 

 vessels and stagnating in the capillaries, which need but an exciting 

 cause to transform the passive congestion of fever into an active con- 

 gestion and acute inflammation. These conditions become still more 

 distinct when the fever is accompanied b}' a decided deterioration in 

 the blood itself, as is seen in influenza, septicemia, and at the termina- 

 tion of severe pneumonias. 



Fever, with its symptoms of increased temperature, acceleration of 



