386 Histo7y of Animal Plagues. 



In a later edition (the 5th), he devotes much care in describ- 

 ing the ' maHgnant fever and epidemy/ or 'distemper/ among 

 horses. He says : ' From the close observations I have possessed 

 the means of making on the various diseases of horses for many 

 years, and taking into consideration the nature, sameness, and sim- 

 plicity of theirybo^, I was long inclined to think that horses were 

 not subject to malignant disorders as men are ; but the epidem- 

 ical disease that has occasionally raged amongst them for several 

 years, and which still shows itself at short intervals, has taught 

 me the contrary. For I notice, in this disease which, I own, is 

 new to me, since the publication of my second edition, that the 

 horses so seized are attacked with a variety of symptoms that re- 

 quire each a very different treatment from every other. The 

 symptoms: The commencement of the disease is marked by great 

 debility of the limbs, so much so in some cases, that the weak- 

 ened patients reel and stagger about when led along, and that 

 almost as soon as they are taken ill. Loss of appetite comes on 

 2;enerally with a short dry cough ; the eyes become suddenly 

 dim and glazed, and lifeless; they are also particularly free from 

 all inclination to drink. Besides those general symptoms of the 

 distemper, some of which prevail more than the others, that are 

 otherwise indicative of the disease having fixed on particular 

 parts of the animal, I shall endeavour to distinguish them as 

 near as I can for the reader^s further guidance when this distem- 

 per again makes its appearance among us. First. — Besides the 

 symptoms already described, some horses are seized with coldness 

 of the external parts, are chiefly affected with a weakness behind, 

 but have no fever or other tokens of inflammation : there seems 

 to be a tendency towards a general stagnation of the fluids. 

 Second. — \x\ this class are great tokens of inflammation, the 

 fever is high, and the external parts are hot and burning; the 

 sight is affected, and the head generally so. Third. — The disease 

 falls mostly on the throat in the third species of attack, with 

 manifest tokens of great soreness there. These seldom have any 

 feverish heat, are not so much affected in their limbs or sight as 

 thoseof the frst and second classes; their appetite and inclin- 

 ation to eat, also, seems better than in these two classes. Before 

 this soreness goes off, however, the patients become miserably re- I 



