INFLAMMATION OF MUCOUS MEMBRANES. 341 



ounce of crude opium, and half an ounce of tincture of 

 arnica is mingled, may be injected into the womb every 

 two hours ; and if the stench is very offensive, five grains 

 of chloride of zinc may be added, while warm clysters are 

 thrown up the rectum, that they may act as fomentations 

 to the part. If the bowels are at all costive, a laxative ball 

 may be administered, after which two drachms of calomel, 

 and one drachm of opium ; to be followed every hour 

 with half a drachm of calomel, and a drachm of opium. 

 Wolfsbane or aconite is the best sedative, and may be 

 given in ten-grain doses four times a day. The practi- 

 tioner need not fear the activity of the measures recom- 

 mended. The case speedily terminates, or the animal 

 becomes better, when the severity of the treatment can of 

 course be ameliorated. 



CHAPTER III. 



INFLAMMATION OF MUCOUS MEMBRANES. 

 COMMON COLD. 



Influenza, or catarrhal fever, as an epidemic, has already 

 occupied our attention at p. 277. The direct cause of com- 

 mon cold is some accidental alternation between cold and 

 heat, when it finds the constitution partially or generally, 

 from certain causes, incapable of resisting its effects. In 

 very young horses it frequently ends in strangles, and when 

 its symptoms assume a more than ordinary intensity, it 

 becomes influenza. A simple attack on the Schneide- 

 rian membranes, known as a common cold, first shows 

 itself by a thin watery secretion from the nose, and from 

 the eyes also in some cases. The lymphatic glands become 

 inflamed, tumefied, and tender ; symptomatic fever follows 

 the inflammatory action ; and the tendency observed in 

 mucous surfaces to take on the formation of pus without 

 ulceration begins, after two or three days, to show itself; 

 first by a coagulable deposit of lymph in a flaky form, and 

 next by a regular flow of yellow muco-purulent matter 

 from the nose : some cough is also usually present. In a 

 few days these appearances vanish, and the horse is con- 



