THE PULSE IN DISEASE. 345 



The pulse is said to be rising when, from being small and 

 frequent, it increases in strength, and often diminishes in 

 frequency. It is a running-down pulse when it becomes 

 very frequent, and more and more indistinct. 



I need not enter into the explanation of many other terms 

 applied to the pulse, but have to state that a full and strong- 

 pulse is characteristic of health, plethora, and when beyond 

 the normal standard, inflammation. I must distinctly state, 

 however, that the pulse alone is not a criterion of the pre- 

 sence of inflammation, and when the late Mr Sewell used to 

 say, that when a horse's pulse rose above 45, in any case, it 

 was a sign of inflammatory action, and called for bleeding, 

 it was in accordance with the doctrine of the Broussais 

 school, " ubi stimulus ubi fluxus," which has proved so de- 

 structive to life in man and animals. In the works on vete- 

 rinary medicine, up to the present day, the dangerous recom- 

 mendation of bleeding, when the pulse is strong, because in- 

 flammation is running high, may be met at every page. In 

 accordance with more enlightened pathological views, efforts 

 .must now be turned towards abolishing such ancient and 

 dangerous methods of practice. It must not be forgotten, 

 that to save blood and not to draw blood is usually equiva- 

 lent to saving an animal's life. The cases are extremely rare 

 in which the abstraction of blood is of any moment; and to 

 the non-professional reader we say, do not tamper with dan- 

 gerous remedies : to the professional reader, as well, I have 

 now to say that the pulse alone can not indicate when bleeding 

 may be advisable. The belief that the frequency of the pulse 

 necessarily indicates inflammation is still a professional opinion 

 fatal to scores of human li ves in Southern Europe ; and where 

 I have found it most in Piedmont horses and cattle share 

 the same fate as consumptive patients, whose palpitating 

 hearts, labouring to act on a scanty supply of blood, soon 



