62 MANUAL OF MODERN FARRIERY 



an epidemic in man, and an epizootic in horses. 

 Like other microbic diseases it has a special affinity 

 for certain organs, and the microbe of influenza 

 selects the mucous membrane which lines the air 

 passages (pulmonary influenza), the same membrane 

 which lines the stomach and bowels (gastric influenza), 

 and the ramifications of the same membrane in the 

 liver (biliary influenza). It is a disease character- 

 ised by suddenness of attack, and from the first 

 moment by marked debility and prostration. The 

 temperature runs high, and this and the general 

 debility leads to an accumulation or congestion of 

 blood in the lungs, stomach, bowels, and liver. 



Influenza is a highly infectious disease, and un- 

 doubtedly the microbes are wafted long distances in 

 the atmosphere. The convalescent horse can carry 

 the contagion and give it to others on arrival at his 

 journey's end hundreds of miles distant from where 

 he contracted it. Stallions convalescent, by the act 

 of copulation, sometimes give influenza to almost 

 every mare they cover. Experiments would point 

 to the ''semen" being contaminated. 



Symptoms. — Loss of appetite, dullness, great and 

 rapid prostration, weakness of the limbs, weakness of 

 the heart's action and pulse, high temperature or 

 fever, from 104" to 107°. In forty-eight hours weak- 

 ness so marked that the animal staggers on his limbs 

 when made to walk. Breathing now becomes dis- 

 turbed, congestion of the lungs having commenced. 

 A bronchial cough is generally present. Constipation 

 of the bowels may be present in the early stages, but 

 in those cases where the bowels and liver are actively 

 engaged in casting out the blood-poison, yellowness 

 of the eyes and diarrhoea may be marked symptoms. 

 A copious discharge from the nostrils may be present, 



