58 Management and Treatment of the Horse. 



as we proceed that I have dared to step out of 

 the beaten track of routine and have ventured to 

 advance some new theories. I am not abandon- 

 ing the cause of science and progress by uttering 

 these sentiments. I believe the question to be a 

 question between progress and retrogression, and 

 the issue we have to try is of enormous import- 

 ance. In the first place it is quite safe to 

 conclude that this distemper, which has ravaged 

 the whole of England and most parts of Europe 

 during the past winter (1874), emanates from 

 atmospheric causes acting directly upon the 

 organic system of the nerves. But what the 

 precise nature of that cause is, our finest tests in 

 science have as yet failed to detect. 



The conclusions that I have come to are as 

 follows : firstly, that the state of the system 

 which we are in the habit of designating " in- 

 fluenza " is not of itself a disease at all ; it is 

 simply a sequence or particular condition of the 

 constitution in which there is an absence of the 

 requisite quantity of nervous energy, deranging 

 the vital principle and inciting irritability ; 

 secondly, that the system does not become 

 affected through the medium of respiration, but 

 through the medium of the skin. I cannot bring 

 my mind to believe that epizootics of this nature 

 are dependent upon some disproportion of oxygen 

 in the air, or to the presence of sulphuretted 

 hydrogen of ozone, nor yet to any organic or in- 

 organic morbific matter in the air. I should 

 rather attribute it to some change or modification 

 in the magnetical or electrical state of the atmo- 



