History of Animal Plagues. 387 



duced, thoujrh this fallinsi; awav oucrht not to be imputed solelv 

 to their fasting, because all horses in this disease that are at- 

 tacked severely, are thereby reduced^ in a very few days, almost 

 to the dco-ree and leanness of a do^-liorse. Foiirth class, or the 

 mild attack. — These are seized at first with a cough only, and 

 show little or no symptoms of illness, nor of any unusual heat 

 or cold, in general a discharge of a serous fluid from the nostrils 

 comes on, as in the inflammatory fever. As the patients of this 

 class are the least affected, so they recover soonest of any, and 

 that, too, with little or no assistance. Fifth. — Along with the 

 cough of the last description, some are troubled with a phlegmon 

 or boil on some part of the head or body. In such cases, if the 

 heat of the patient's body and strength be sufficient, the tumour 

 comes on to ripeness, when its bursting, or being let out with a 

 lancet, is criticalli/ a cure of the disorder. But in some poor 

 creatures, whose system mav be in a low state, the vital heat is 

 so little that their lives are manifestly endangered before the 

 tumour can be brought to a head sufficient to open by the usual 

 assistance of poultices and cherishing diet, ntal heat, however, 

 upon which depends the spontaneous termination of a large 

 class of distempered horses, deserves a moment's consideration 

 here, inasmuch as the different progress of the critical boil or 

 tumour in different horses, is owing to difference of their fuids, 

 and the more brisk or languid circulation thereof, as they happen 

 to be more or less viscid. If this be not the true cause, I beg to 

 ask from whence should arise the two extreme sensations of cold 

 and heat in different horses affected with the same epidemical 

 disease in the same stable, and, of course, under the same man- 

 agement? It may also- be here instructively remarked, that 

 those horses are most affected with cold and shivering (the pres- 

 age of death) in whose blood is found the least proportion of 

 serum.' ' 



A.D. 1751. In Ireland, about December, ^ there prevailed 

 again among the horses an epidemic catarrh, being attended with 

 a running at the eyes and heaviness, with a tumour of the head, 

 limbs, and sometimes scrotum, not so general as last year, though 

 some few died.'^ The spring had been stormy and cold ; sum- 



' ly. Osmcr. A Treatise on Horses, 5t]i edit., p. 103. " Kiitty. Op. til. 



