INFLUENZA. 277 



A hood is a useful article of clothing in these cases. It increases the 

 perspiration from the surface covering the inflamed part — a circumstance 

 always of considerable moment, and the legs should be Avarmlj bandao-ed 

 up to the hocks and the knees. 



An equable warmth should be preserved, if possible, over the whole body. 

 The hand-rubber should be gently used every day, and harder and more 

 efiectual rubbing applied to the legs. The patient should, if possible, ba 

 placed in a loose box, in which he may move about, and take a little exer- 

 cise, and out of which he should rarely, if at all, be taken. The exercise 

 of which the groom is so fond in these cases, and which must in the most 

 peremptory terms be forbidden, has destroyed thousands of horses. The 

 air should be fresh and uncontaminated, but never chilly ; for the object 

 is to increase and not to repress cutaneous perspiration ; to produce, it 

 possible, a determination of blood to the skin, and not to drive it to the 

 part already too much overloaded. In order to accomplish this, the cloth- 

 ing should be rather warmer than usual. 



The case may proceed somewhat slowly, and not quite satisfactory to 

 the practitioner or his employer. There is not much fever — there is little 

 or no local inflammation ; but there is great emaciation and debility, and 

 total loss of appetite. 



The feeding should now be sedulously attended to. As before stated, 

 almost every kind of green meat that can be obtained should be given, 

 particularly carrots nicely scraped and sliced. The food should be changed 

 as often as the capricious appetite prompts ; and occasionally, if necessary, 

 the patient should be given gTuel as thick as it will run from the horn, but 

 the gradual retm-n of health should be well assured, before a fuU allow- 

 ance of corn is given. 



In a communication received fi-om the late Mr. Percivall, the follow- 

 ing account of a new and destructive epidemic amongst horses in 1833-4 

 is given: — 



' From the close of the past year and the beginning of the present, up 

 to the time I am writing, the influenza among horses has continued to 

 pi-evail in the metropolis and different parts of the country with more or 

 less fatality. In London it has assumed the form of laryngitis, associated 

 in some instances with bronchitis; in others — in all I believe where it has 

 proved fatal— with pleurisy. The parenchymatous structure of the lungs 

 has not partaken of the disease, or but consecutively and slightly. The 

 earhest and most characteristic symptom has been sore tliroat ; causing 

 troublesome dry short cough, but rarely occasioning any difficulty of deglu- 

 tition, and, in no instance that I have seen, severe or extensive enough to 

 produce anything like disgorgement or return of the masticated matters 

 through the nose, and yet the slightest pressure on the larynx has excited 

 an act of coughing. But seldom has any glandular enlargement appeared. 

 The symptom secondarily remarkable after the sore throat and cough has 

 been a dispiritedness and dullness, for which most epidemics of the kind 

 are remarkable. The animal, at the time of sickening, has hung his head 

 under the manger, with his eyes half shut, and his lower lip pendent, 

 ■without evincing any alarm or even much notice, though a person entered 

 his abode or approached him ; and if in a box, his head is often found 

 during his illness turned towards the door or window. Fever, without any 

 disturbance of the respiration, has always been present ; the pulse has 

 been accelerated, though rather small and weak in its beat than defective 

 of strength ; the mouth has been hot, sometimes burning hot, after- 

 wards moist, and perhaps saponaceous ; the skin and extremities in general 

 have been warm. Now and then the prostration and appearance of debility 

 have been sucIl taid so rapid in their manifestations, that shortly after 



