EPIDEMIC CATARRH. 199 



small quantity of some choice thing; and health and strength slowly, very slowly 

 indeed, return : but at other times, when there had been no decided change during 

 the progress of the disease, no manageable metastasis of inflammation while there 

 was sufficient power left in the constitution to struggle with it, a strange exacerbation 

 sf symptoms accompanies the closing scene. The extremities become deathly cold ; 

 the flanks heave ; the countenance betrays greater distress ; the membrane of the nose 

 is of an intense red ; and inflammation of the substance of the lungs and congestion 

 and death speedily follow. 



At other times the redness of the nostril suddenly disappears ; it becomes purple, 

 livid, dirty brown, and the discharge is bloody and fcelid, the breath and all the 

 excretions becoming foetid too. The mild character of the disease gives way to 

 malignant typhus : swellings, and purulent ulcers, spread over ditferent parts of th« 

 frame, and the animal is soon destroyed. 



Post-mortem Examination. — Examination after death sufficiently displays the real 

 character of the disease, inflammation first of the respiratory passages, and, in fatal 

 or aggravated cases, of the mucous membranes generally. From the pharynx, to the 

 termination of the small intestines, and often including even the larger ones, there 

 will not be a part free from inflammation ; the upper part of the trachea will be filled 

 with adhesive spume, and the lining membrane thickened, injected, or ulcerated ; the 

 lining tunic of the bronchi will exhibit unequivocal marks of inflammation ; the sub- 

 stance of the lungs will be engorged, and often inflamed ; the heart will partake of 

 the same aflTection ; its external coat will be red, or purple, or black, and its internal 

 one will exhibit spots of ecchymosis ; the pericardium will be thickened, and the 

 pericardiac and pleuritic bags will contain an undue quantity of serous, or bloody- 

 serous, or purulent fluid. 



The oesophagus will be inflamed, sometimes ulcerated — the stomach always so ; 

 the small intestines will uniformly present patches of inflammation or ulceration. 

 The liver will be inflamed — the spleen enlarged — no part, indeed, will have escaped ; 

 and if the malady has assumed a typhoid form in its latter stages, the universality 

 and malignancy of the ulceration will be excessive. 



This disease is clearly attributable to atmospheric influence, but of the precise 

 nature of this influence we are altogether ignorant. It is some foreign injurious 

 principle which mingles with and contaminates the air, but whence this poison is 

 derived, or how it is diffused, we know not. It is engendered, or it is most prevalent, 

 in cold ungenial weather ; or this weather may dispose the patient for catarrh, or 

 prepare the tissues to be affected by causes which would otherwise be harmless, or 

 which may at all times exist. 



It is most frequent in the spring of the year, but it occasionally rages in autumn 

 and in winter. It is epidemic ; it spreads over large districts. It sometimes pervades 

 the whole country. Scarcely a stable escapes. Its appearance is sudden, its progress 

 rapid. Mr. Wilkinson had 3G new cases in one day. It is said that a celebrated 

 practitioner in London had nearly double that number in less than twenty-four hours 



At other times it is endemic. It pervades one town ; one little tract of country. It 

 is confined to spots exceedingly circumscribed. It is dependent on atmospheric 

 agency, but this requires some injurious adjuvant and the principle of contagion must 

 probably be called into play. It has been rife enough in the lower parts of the metro- 

 polis, while in the upper and north-western districts scarcely a case has occurred. 

 It has occasionally been confined to a locality not extending half-a-mile in any direc- 

 tion. In one of the cavalry barracks the majority of the horses on one side of the 

 yard were attacked by epidemic catarrh, while there was not a sick horse on the 

 other side. These prevalences of disease, and these exceptions, are altogether unac- 

 countable. The stables, and the system of stable management, have been most 

 carefully inquired into in the infected and the healthy districts, and no satisfactory 

 difference could be ascertained. One fact, however, has been established, and a very 

 important one it is to the horse proprietor as well as the practitioner. The probability 

 of the disease seems to be in proportion to the number of horses inhabiting the stable. 

 Two or three horses shut up in a comparatively close stable may escape. Out of 

 thirty horses, distributed through ten or fifteen little stables, not one may be affected , 

 but in a stable containing ten or twelve horses the disease will assuredly appear, 

 although it may be proportionally larger and well ventilated. It is on this account 

 that postmasters and horse-dealers dread its appearance. In a sickly season their 



