92 VETERNARY HOMCEOPATHY. 



PURPURA H.EMORRHAGICA. 



This may well be taken to succeed the chapter on weed as there 

 are some points of similarit}^ while as yet the distinctive features 

 are marked. Among horses this disease frequently succeeds im- 

 mediately upon convalescence from some exhaustive and lowering 

 diseased conditions such as are observed in influenza; at the same 

 time we have known many cases which, so far as we could tell, 

 developed quite independently of any previous illness; whether the 

 blood alone or the bloodvessels of themselves are responsible for 

 the condition known as " purpura," we are not prepared to posi- 

 tively affirm; one opinion, however, is that a disorded state of the 

 blood and a want of tone in the vessels accounts for the symp- 

 toms peculiar to this disease; one of the earliest indications is the 

 swelling of the head, particularly about the nostrils and lips, but 

 extending more or less all over; large swellings witli distinctly 

 sharp margins arise on the abdomen and chest, and about the 

 upper portions of the legs, fore and hind; these swellings are 

 neither particularly hot nor tender, but upon their surface a large 

 number of small spots (or vesicles) appear, which contain a red- 

 dish-colored fluid; these little vesicles soon burst and the fluid 

 oozes out, the swellings are considered to be due to an escape of 

 the blood from the bloodvessels into the tissues through which 

 they take their course; either muscle or so-called connective tissue, 

 chiefly among the latter; and, inasmuch as the blood has got out 

 of its proper channel in the parts where these swellings are found, 

 its natural tendency is to escape somewhere, hence the regular 

 oozing of the red fluid over the surface of the large swellings. 

 In addition, blood spots will be observedon the mucous membrane 

 lining the nose; these which at first merely look like star-shaped 

 spots of a very bright red color, also discharge the red fluid, and 

 the spots have a distinct tendency to run together and form large 

 ones; after the oozing has been going on for a few hours the color 

 of the fluid graduall)^ assumes a much darker hue and dries and 

 cakes over; this, however, is due to the drying influence of the 

 atmosphere and not to the properties of the blood which seems so 

 changed and altered in its constitution as to have lost its normal 

 tendency to form a clot, the fact being that as it becomes blacker 

 in color it is less likely to congeal and rather keeps up a constant 



