278 INFLUENZA. 



being attacked, a horse has staggeringly -walked twenty yards only — - 

 the distance from his stable into the infirmary -box. The appetite, though 

 impaired much, has seldom been altogether lost. Generally, if a little 

 fresh hay has been offered, it has been taken and eaten ; but to mashes 

 there has been commonly great aversion. During the long continuance 

 of the wind in the east, the sore throat and cough have been unattended 

 by any flux from the nose ; but since the wind has shifted -vvithin this last 

 foi'tnight or three weeks, discharges from the nostrils have appeared, pro- 

 fuse even in quantity, and purulent in their nature ; in fact, the disease has 

 assumed a more catarrhal character — ergo, I might add, a more favourable 

 one. 



' The disorder has exhibited every phase and degree of intensity, from 

 the slightest perceivable dullness, which has passed off with simply a 

 change in the diet, to an insidious, unyielding, unsubduable pleurisy, 

 ending in hydrothorax, in spite of everything that could be done, and 

 most timely done. So long as the disease has confined itself to the throat, 

 and that there has been along with that only dejection, prostration, and 

 fever, there has existed no cause for alarm ; but when such symptoms have, 

 after some days' continuance, not abated, and have, on the contraiy, rather 

 increased, and others have arisen which but too well have authorised sus- 

 picion that " mischief Avas brewing in the chest," then there became the 

 strongest reasons for alarm for the safety of the patient. "What is now to 

 be done ? The practitioner durst not bleed a second time, at least not 

 generally, for the patient's strength would not endure it, although he is 

 sure a pleurisy is consuming his patient. He possesses no efiectual means 

 for topical blood-letting. Neither blisters nor rowels, nor plugs nor setons, 

 will take any effect. Cathartic medicine he must not administer ; nau- 

 seants are uncertain and doubtful in their efficacy ; sedatives, tonics, and 

 stimulants, and narcotics, appear counter-indicated, inflammation existing, 

 and Avhen tried under such circumstances, have, I believe, never failed to 

 do harm. 



' Dissatisfied with one and all of these remedies in the late influenza — 

 though the losses I have experienced have, after all, not been so very com- 

 paratively great, being no more, since the beginning of the year, than three 

 out of nearly forty cases — I repeat, ha\ing, as I thought, reason to be 

 dissatisfied for losing even these thi-ee cases, considering that they came 

 under my care at the earliest period of indisposition, I determined, in any 

 similar cases that might occur, to have recourse to that medicine which, 

 in all membranous inflammations in particular, is the physician's sheet- 

 anchor, and which I had exhibited, and still continue to do, myself, in 

 other disorders, though I had never given it a fair trial in epidemics 

 having that tendency which I have described the present one uniformly to 

 have indicated, viz. the destruction of life by an inflammation attacking 

 membranous parts, of a nature over which, being forbidden to bleed, ^\e 

 appeared to possess little or no power. Could we have di-awn blood from 

 the sides or breast, by cupping or by leeches, in any tolerable quantity, we 

 mio'ht have had some control over the internal disease ; but barred from 

 this, and without any remedy save a counter-irritant, which we could not 

 make act, or an internal medicine, whose action became extremely dubious, 

 if not positively hurtful, Avhat was to be done ? I repeat, I made up my 

 mind to experiment with the surgeon's remedy in the same disease, namely, 

 mercury ; and that I have had reason to feel gratified at the result will, I 

 think, appear from the following cases : — 



' Case I. — April 8. Every sj^mptom of the prevailing epidemic : and 

 considerably aggravated on the 10th, when the horse laboured under much 

 prostration of strength, and staggered considerably in his gait. The 



