491 



INFLUENZA. 



Synonyms: Pin'k-Eije, Typhoid Fever, Epizodty, Epiliippic Fever, 

 Fievre Typhoide, Freucli; Grippe, French; Pferdestauhe, German; 

 Gastro-enteriUs of Yatel and d'Arboval; Fehris Erysipelatodes, Zim- 

 del; r//2)7??7.s of Delafond; Hepatic Fever, Bilious Fever, etc. 



Definition. — Influenza is a contagious and infectious specific fever 

 of tlie horse, ass, and mule, with alterations of the blood, stui)efaction 

 of the brain and nervous s^'stem, great depression of the xHrX forces 

 and frequent inflammatory- complications of the imxx)rtant vascular 

 organs, especially of the lungs, intestines, brain, and lamina of the 

 feet. One attack usualh- protects the animal from future ones of the 

 same disease, but not always. An apparent complete recovery is 

 sometimes followed by serious sequela? of the nervous and blood-vessel 

 systems. The disease is very apt, under certain conditions of the 

 atmosphere or from unknown causes, to assume an epizootic form, 

 with tendency to complications of especial organs, as, at one period 

 the lungs, at another the intestines, etc. 



The first description of influenza is given by Laurentius Rusius, in 

 1301, A. D., when it spread over a considerable portion of Italy, 

 causing great loss amongst the war-horses of Rome and its sur- 

 roundings. In 1648, A. D., an epizootic of this disease visited Ger- 

 many and spread to other parts of Europe. la 1711, A. D., under 

 the name of "epidemica equorum,'' it followed the tracks of the great 

 armies all over Europe, causing unmense losses among the horses, 

 while the ''rinderpest was scourging the cattle of the same regions. 

 The two diseases were confounded v\-ith each other, and were, by 

 the scientists of the day, allied to the typhus, which was a plague to 

 the human race at the same time. AVe find the first advent of this 

 disease to the British Islands in an epizootic among the horses of Lon- 

 don and the southern counties of England, in 1732, which is described 

 by Gibson. In 1758, Robert Whytt recounts the devastation of the 

 horses of the north of Scotland from the same trouble. Throughout 

 the eighteenth centur}- a number of epizootics occurred in Hanover 

 and other portions of Germany and in France, which were renewed 

 early in the present century, with complications of the intestinal 

 tract, which obtained for it its name of gastro-enteritis. In 17GG it 

 first attacked the horses in Xorth America, but is not described as 

 again occurring in a severe form until 1870-1872, when it spread 

 over the entire country, fi-om Canada south to Ohio, and then east- 

 ward to the Atlantic and westward to California. It is noAv a per- 

 manent disease in our large cities, selecting for the continuance of 

 its virulence young or especially susceptible horses which pass 

 through the large and iU-ventilated and uncleaned dealers' stables 

 and assumes, from time to time, an enzootic form, as from some 

 reason its virulence increases, or as from reasons of rural economy 



