184 THE HORSE. 



slight desree quickened and shorteued. In other cases, the symptoms are 

 those of common fever, catarrh, or distemper; and the characteristics of 

 true inflammation of the lungs appear late and unexpectedly. The cold 

 leg and ear, the quickened, not deepened inspiration, the disinclination 

 to lie down, and the anxious countenance, will always alarm the experi- 

 enced observer. 



Whatever may be the state of the pulse at first, it soon becomes op- 

 pressed, irregular, indistinct, and at length almost imperceptible. The 

 heart is labouring in vain to push on the column of blood with w hich the 

 vessels are distended, and the flow of which is obstructed by the clogged- 

 up passages of the lungs. The legs and ears, which were cold before, be- 

 come more intensely so— it is a clayey, deathy coldness. The mouth soon 

 participates in it, and the breath too. The bright red of the nostril fades 

 away, or darkens to a livid purple. The animal grinds his teeth. He still 

 persists in standing, although he often staggers and almost falls; at length 

 he drops, and after a few struggles dies. 



Theduration of the disease is singularly uncertain. It will occasionally 

 destroy in less than twenty-four hours, and then the lungs present one con- 

 fused and disorganised mass of blackness, and would lead the inexperienced 

 person to imagine that long inflammation had gradually so completely 

 broken down the substance of the lungs. Such a horse is said to die rotten, 

 and many attempts have been made to prove that he must have been un- 

 sound for a great while, and probably before he came into his last owner's 

 possession, and some expensive law-suits have been instituted on this 

 ground. Let our readers, how^ever, be assured, that this black, decom- 

 posed appearance of the lungs proves no disease of long standing, but 

 inflammation intense in its nature, and that has very speedily run its 

 course. The horse has died from suffocation, every portion of the lungs 

 being choked up with this black blood, which has even broken into and 

 filled all the air-cells by means of which it should have been purified. 



More frequently the disease lasts a little longer. The lungs are suffi- 

 ciently pervious for some blood to be transmitted ; but the inflammation is 

 too great to be subdued, or proper means have not been taken to subdue 

 it; and it runs its usual course, and proceeds to actual mortification, and 

 the lungs are found not only black, but putrid. This, too, would prove recent 

 and violent inflammation, and not any old and unsuspected disease. 

 This termination would be indicated, a day or two before the death of 

 the animal, by the stinking breath, and the offensive discharge from the 

 nose. 



A frequent, and to the practitioner and the owner a most annoying ter- 

 mination of inflammation of the lungs, is dropsy in the chest. The disease 

 seems to be subdued ; the horse is more lively ; his appetite returns ; his 

 legs and ears become warm ; and those about him are deceived into the 

 belief that he is doing well : nay, the most skilful surgeon is sometimes 

 deceived. The anxiety to save his patient makes him hope the best, 

 although the coat continues unhealthy, theie is a yellow discharge from 

 the nostril, the pulse is irregular, and the horse is frightened if sud- 

 denly moved, and especially if his head be considerably raised in the act of 

 drenching, and he rarely or never lies down. Many days or some weeks will 

 pass on, with these contradictory and unsatisfactory aj^pearances ; and a 

 judgment of the insult can only be formed by balancing them against each 

 other. At length the patient shivers, the old symptoms return, and he very 

 soon dies. On opening him, both sides of the chest are found nearly filled 

 \vith fluid, impeding the pulsation of the heart, and the expansion of the 

 lungs, and destroying the horse by suffocation.^ 



